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The Information Ministry relayed a caution to Ghanaians with respect to interacting with fake and unverified social media accounts created in the name of governmental institutions and agencies.

This was contained in a statement released on October 27, 2019.

Parts of the statement read “...unverified accounts are mostly created in the names of Public Institutions, Ministers, Members of Parliament and other public figures. The accounts are used as platforms to promise jobs, scholarships, contracts and senior high school national service placements…In exchange, victims are lured into making advance cash payments to secure the offers…”

On the back of this development and several other cases of misrepresentations on social media, GhanaWeb investigated some ministries and their respective social media handles, as well as, how active they are, a characteristic that would help serve as a big competition to fake accounts.

Well-recognized government ministries were streamlined - the Ministry of Information, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, Energy Ministry, Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Communications Ministry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Tourism, Ministry of Trade and Industries and others.

Verification Status

A verified account on the two main social media giants Twitter and Facebook - which has the subscription of more than half of Ghanaian internet user population – means the particular account is authentic and of public interest.

But to the dismay of Ghanaians, only a few of the social media accounts of government ministries are verified.

On both Twitter and Facebook, only two of the aforementioned ministries – the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Finance - have at least one verified account, leaving a lot of questions unanswered as to how they expect people to not succumb to false and pretentious pages.

Not only does this development contribute to the growing spate of misrepresentation and fraud in the name of public institutions, it also leaves room for the practice.

Also, some of the ministries were unavailable on at least one of the social media platforms.