FALSE: This image of a huge rock in a container is from Malawi, not Uganda
A reverse image search shows that the image was taken in Malawi.
A Facebook post claiming to show officials in Uganda staring at a giant rock placed in a container is FALSE.
The image is accompanied by a caption that reads in part, “Its only in Uganda where you finish clearing your copper containers but only to find painted rocks [sic]”. Additionally, the author of the post questions the procedures of clearing and determining the rate of taxes in the country.
In the image shared alongside the post, three men are seen looking at a huge rock inside a container.
However, a Google reverse image search shows that the picture was taken in Malawi and not Uganda as claimed. The image has been published in several Malawian online publications such as KingAziz.com, Malawi24 and adamabdella.com.
Malawi24 reported that the picture shows Malawi’s Minister of Mining, Rashid Gaffar, accompanied by other officials from the ministry. The report says that the rock contains quartz and was being shipped to China for testing as a sample. The photo was also posted on March 25, 2021, on Malawi Times’ Facebook page.
Further, a tweet by Idriss A. Nassah shows a video of officials inspecting the rock in the container. According to the tweet, the minister is one of the officials in the video inspecting the container of what Chinese investors claim were samples of precious minerals being exported for analysis.
Mr Gaffar told The Times Group that he had stopped the export of a rose quartz mineral rock, weighing 25 tonnes, which officials from his ministry were selling at K2 million and had been earmarked for Asian market.
PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook post claiming to show officials in Uganda staring at a giant rock in a container and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Pius Enywaru and edited by chief copy editor Rose Lukalo. It was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
