MISLEADING! Kenkey and Yam are not 10 cedis and 80 cedis

The claim

On 27th May 2025, George Krobea Asante, the Deputy National Communications Director for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was on UTV's Adekye Nsroma where he claimed that the cost of kenkey is now 10 cedis and a tuber of yam costs 80 Ghana cedis.

Today a tuber of yam, when NPP was leaving government people were complaining that yam was 50 and 40 cedis. Today one tuber of yam is 80 cedis. Just yesterday I was with my friends, we bought a tuber of yam for 100 cedis… kenkey that they said was 7 cedis, today has gotten to 10 cedis. Take it or leave it.

— George Krobea Asante, NPP Deputy National Communications Director

What we found

To ascertain whether Kenkey and Yam are selling at 10 cedis and 80 cedis respectively, a researcher from Fakenews Ghana visited 5 Kenkey vendors on the Spintex Road in Accra as well as three major markets in Accra namely Ashiaman, Agbogbloshi Kantamanto and Tema station markets. The average price of Kenkey as of 27th May 2025 was 5.50 GHC while the average price of Yam in the market was 45 cedis.

Our researcher noted that the price variation of Kenkey depended largely on location. High-end restaurants or eateries priced their kenkey differently depending on its accompaniments (pork, fried squid, fried octopus, eggs among others) while local vendors (who are usually by the roadside) had slightly lower prices. In the same vein, the price of Yam largely depended on the size and type of yam. Bigger yams sold slightly more than smaller ones. In addition, our research found that old yams sold slightly higher than new yams, especially the popular one called "Puna".

Verdict

The prices cited by George Krobea Asante do not reflect average market prices. While individual transactions may vary, the figures he quoted are significantly above what was found across multiple markets in Accra. We rate this claim MISLEADING.