The Fourth Estate

Ten communities in Yendi in the Northern Region were selected in 2022 to receive mechanised boreholes under a World Bank-funded project. Project records indicate that boreholes were drilled in all ten communities. But an investigation by The Fourth Estate found no evidence of the facilities in three of them, although official documents list the work as completed. William Jalulah and Joojo Cobbinah...

In 2023, the Akufo Addo administration introduced a digital platform to centralise property rate collection, promising to modernise the system and boost local revenue. But an investigation by The Fourth Estate revealed that instead of solving the problem, the digital platform led to a sharp decline in collections. In this episode, Seth Bokpe explains why the system failed, how much was collected,...

Most of Ghana’s major roads and streets are persistently dark at night. This is despite the fact that Ghanaians pay a 3 percent energy levy on their electricity bills.  Investigations by The Fourth Estate found that, the Energy Ministry between 2023 and 2025 awarded street lighting contracts worth eight billion Ghana cedis – mostly without competitive bidding.  On this episode of the podcast, we g...

From September 2026, The Fourth Estate is inviting its readers to become stakeholders in a new membership model that keeps its public interest journalism going while giving supporters a stake in the mission.  In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Sulemana Braimah, Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa to unpack how this membership drive works, why it matters, and wh...

The Fourth Estate’s investigations into the Mahama administration’s flagship construction project, The Big Push, generated a lot of public debate about the use and abuse of sole source procurement in the award of public contracts.  In May 2026, in response to The Fourth Estate’s investigation, the presidency released a 72-page report which concluded that the Ministry of Roads and Highways did not...

To equip young journalists with critical, in-depth reporting skills, The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) five years ago, launched the Next Generation Investigative Journalists (NGIJ) fellowship.  In this episode, we take a look at the journey of the NGIJ fellowship since its inception. We sit down with past and present fellows, as well as MFWA leadership, to track the program's succes...

When the local government ministry started the sanitation guards initiative in 2007, the goal was clear - to help make Ghana cleaner.  But as laudable as the idea is, a lot of the guards who have been recruited over the years have dropped out of the program managed by Zoomlion and many are considering exiting as well due to non-payment of allowances stated in their contracts.  The Fourth Estate&ap...

Article 286 of the 1992 constitution of Ghana requires public office holders to declare their assets and liabilities before they assume office. They are also required to do same at the end of every four years and at the end of their term of office. But enforcing this has been a challenge for several governments over the years.  Out of the current 276 Members of Parliament, 151 are yet to declare t...

Shortly after the Fourth Estate released its documentary 'Medical Kalabule', the Health Minister formed a committee to investigate allegations made in the documentary. The committee's report indicted only one of the medical professionals named in the documentary for overcharging patients for surgical tools and recommended him for disciplinary action. Two other medical professional w...

Right at the start of his second term in office, President John Mahama pledged to eliminate sole-sourcing, suggesting a push for new legislation to end the practice of awarding public contracts without competitive bidding. It was a bold promise, framed as part of a broader effort to improve transparency and accountability in government procurement. But an investigation by The Fourth Estate suggest...

Typically, when someone dies under mysterious circumstances, the police launch an investigation to ascertain if it was a murder or accidental. But what happens when a person dies under questionable circumstances while in police detention? For the documentary Death in Detention: Suspected Killings in Ghana's Police Custody , Joojo Cobbinah and Edmund Boateng spoke with families of a number of...

Investigations by The Fourth Estate revealed that over a five-year period, at least 19 people died while being detained by the Ghana Police Service. Four of those deaths, according to the police, were suicides. But families of the deceased suspects have rejected the claims.  In the first of our two-part documentary, Death in Detention: Suspected Killings in Ghana's Police Custody, Joojo Cobbi...

When the documentary, Medical Kalabule, was released earlier this month, it exposed the desperation and lengths some critically ill patients and their families were willing to go for care.  While a committee set up by the Ministry of Health investigates the issues raised in the documentary, we go behind the scenes with the documentary's producer, Joojo Cobbinah.  In this episode, Joojo talks...

Some doctors in Ghana entrusted with saving lives have instead been preying on patients in desperate need of urgent, life-saving surgeries. In a health system already stretched by staff shortages, limited infrastructure and chronic equipment gaps, some surgeons have found a way to turn crisis into profit. The Fourth Estate’s investigation uncovers how patients at Ridge Hospital were allegedly forc...

In just about five short years, The Fourth Estate has produced investigations that have dominated national conversations and triggered real-world consequences, from prosecutions to policy reviews. But how did this project begin, and why does it work so differently from conventional newsrooms? In this opening episode, host Nii Akrofi Smart-Abbey sits down with the Executive Director of the Media Fo...

The Fourth Estate Podcast takes Ghana’s most impactful investigations beyond the written page. In just a few years, The Fourth Estate has broken stories that sparked official investigations, triggered prosecutions and forced hard national conversations about power, accountability and justice. This podcast fills the missing piece by giving you a simple way to engage with that journalism by listenin...