Summary: A Facebook post circulating Facebook claims that President Joseph Boakai will not serve as the keynote speaker at the National Black Business Conference as announced by the Executive Mansion. These posts indicate that Isaac Barnes, an American who is the CEO of the United State Group, will be the keynote speaker. We have fact-checked the claim and found it to be misleading. Although Mr. Barnes will speak at a session during the confrence, President Boakai will serve as the keynote speaker at the luncheon.
On August 20, several posts emerged on Facebook claiming that President Joseph N. Boakai, Sr. would not serve as the Keynote Speaker at the National Black Business Conference but rather Mr. Isaac Barnes – CEO of the United State Group.
These posts emerged following a press release by the Executive Mansion announcing President Boakai’s departure to the U.S. where he was invited to be the Keynote Speaker at the conference in Atlanta.
The post, shared along with a flyer with the photo of Mr. Isaac Barnes, claims that President Boakai will not be the Keynote Speaker.
Amongst those sharing this claim, is Aloysius Howe, special assistant to former Finance Minister.
Claim
Howe posted: “President Boakai is not the Keynote Speaker at the 124th National Black Business Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, but according to the organizers, Mr. Isaac Barnes who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Unified State Group of Companies will serve as keynote speaker and will deliver the keynote address at the 124’th National Black Business Conference.”
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim, we conducted a thorough research of press releases or information online about the conference. Our main focus was to identify the Conference’s keynote speaker.
We viewed the list of speakers on the organizer’s website, Facebook, and Instagram pages and found that President Boakai will be the Keynote Speaker during the launch of the Pan-African Black Business event on Friday, August 23, 2024.
Several American news outlets also confirmed here, here and here that President Boakai will be the keynote speaker during the conference.
We also found that Isaac Barnes will serve as a speaker at a session of the Conference – the Pan-African Global Opportunities Summit on Saturday, August 24, 2024.
Conclusion
Based on the online research conducted, we therefore conclude that the claim by Howe that President Boakai will not serve as the Keynote Speaker at the conference is misleading.
This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content
