By Mustapha K Darboe
Since the appointment of the new information minister, Dr Ismaila Ceesay, the activity on the pages of the Ministry of Information has increased, with the publication of a series of information showing the “good performance” of President Adama Barrow’s administration.
On April 5, the Department of Information Services shared a post on its official Facebook page placing Gambia among the 10 best governed countries in Africa. The post was also reshared by the Ministry of Information. The story shared was published by a platform called Business Insider Africa.
Claim
A post shared by the Department of Information Services, a government agency under the Ministry of Information, placed Gambia among the top ten best governed countries in Africa.
On April 6— after resharing the post published by the Department of Information Services, the Ministry of Information published a short statement on its official Facebook page celebrating the achievement.
Fact-check
The publication was made by Business Insider Africa based on World Economics Governance rankings produced by a UK-based platform called World Economics.
The same ranking also placed Ghana as the only West African country in the top 5 best performing countries, according to this story published by the CITI News.
Analysis
The scale used in the ranking is A to E where A is the “best performance” and E is the “worst performance”. The Gambia gets a middle grade score, C, which is categorized as “average”.
The report’s grading system was based on several indices, including Rule of Law, Press Freedom, Political Rights, and Corruption.
The original data, according to the organisation, was derived from World Justice Report, Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House and the World Bank.
The 2023 Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International— a leading global indicator of public sector corruption— the Gambia was ranked 98 out of 180 countries in the world and 18 out of 51 countries in Africa. The country was ranked 110 out of 180 countries a year earlier.
The country is ranked 46 out of 180 countries on the 2023 Press Freedom Index by the Reporters Without Borders, an improvement from 50 out of 180 in 2022.
The Gambia has been ranked 85 out of 142 countries in the world, and 9 out of 34 in Sub-Saharan Africa on the 2023 Rule of Law Index by World Justice Project. The country was ranked 86 out of 140 countries in 2022 and 10 out of 34 in the region.
The Gambia has been described “partly free” on both the 2022 and 2023 on Freedom in the World Index ranking by the Freedom House. The country obtained 47 out of 100 possible points in 2022 and 48 out of 100 possible points in 2023.
The World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Index latest of which was released in 2022 ranks Gambia 13 in Africa and 115 in the world in terms of combating corruption. It ranks Gambia 23 in Africa and 155 in the world in terms of government effectiveness.
Verdict: the story shared by the Department of Information is based on data published by World Economics but the headline of the story does not present an accurate representation of facts.
