In Summary: A Facebook account has posted a statement attributing it to President Joseph Boakai, calling on citizens to buy generators as a means of overcoming the heat. We have checked the claim and found it to be misleading.
A Facebook page The Daily News on February 19, claimed in what it purports to be a newspaper publication about generators to deal with the heat challenge. In recent times, Liberians have experienced increasing load shedding by the Corporation.
These increasing load-shedding schedules, which LEC says is due to the high demand caused by the connection of new homes, and the early arrival of the dry season among other things have sparked huge concerns among Liberians
Claim
The headline of the purported news article reads: “President Boakai Urges Citizens to Purchase Generator to Beat the Heat in Liberia”.
Rating Justification
To fact-check this claim we first searched and did not find any local newspaper named “The Daily News”.
The purported news article was posted to a Facebook page – The Daily News. It did not say where President Boakai made the statement. There has been no news report by any renowned media outlet.
To further verify this claim, we sought to authenticate the credibility of the social media blog that published the claim.
A review of the page transparency of The Daily News shows that it was created June 3, 2020.
The contact information of the page shows that the service area of the page is Rabat Morocco. Further review of the page shows that the name of the Facebook page has been changed three different times.
In 2020 when it was created, the page name was named “Modern Liberia News Agency” but changed its name to “Modern Liberia Agency” in 2023 and on February 17, 2024, the page again changed its name to “The Daily News”.
Conclusion
Based on these evidence, we therefore conclude that the claim shared in a purported news publication shared on The Daily News Facebook page that President Boakai has urged Liberians to purchase generator to beat the heat is misleading.
There is no statement from the Executive Mansion about President Boakai saying what was attributed to him in the purported article. The attribution or story was not reported by any mainstream media outlet.
Also, our research established that the Facebook page which shared the purported article name was last changed two days before the publication. This is a red flag that points to the credibility of the blog.
