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Claim: An X user, Nana Yaa Ayensu (@estherayensu1), claimed that Tanzania has no natural resources.
Verdict: False. According to official sources, including the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Tanzania Investment Centre, Tanzania has several natural resources, including gold, copper, and diamonds.
Full Text
On April 19, 2024, an X user Nana Yaa Ayensu @estherayensu1 tweeted that Tanzania has no natural resources. The tweet included a video showcasing well-developed railway lines with a moving train. In the claim the user said, “Tanzania don’t have natural resources as Ghana, but look at what they can do with their borrowed money.”
DUBAWA decided to fact-check two claims: the origin of the video and whether Tanzania has natural resources. The user’s background as the former Regional Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Program (GSFP) under the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and a politician raised the importance of fact-checking, especially during an election year.
The claim has received over 30,000 views and over 100 retweets on the X platform. Thus, the fact check aims to verify the authenticity of the video and determine whether Tanzania has natural resources, addressing potential misinformation
Verification
Initially, DUBAWA set out to verify if the video shared by the user indeed originated from Tanzania, an East African nation. Upon investigation using an Invid Verification Tool, we confirmed that the footage originated from Tanzania. It captured the testing phase of the country’s inaugural electric train system, operated by the Tanzania Railway Corporation. This electric standard gauge railway connects Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital, to Morogoro, situated approximately 200 kilometres inland. CGTN Africa published the video on YouTube on Feb 27, 2024.
Subsequently, we researched to ascertain whether Tanzania truly lacks natural resources. Our findings revealed that Tanzania possesses a plethora of natural resources. These include metallic minerals such as gold, iron ore, nickel, copper, cobalt, and silver; gemstones like diamonds, tanzanite, ruby, garnets, and pearls; industrial minerals including limestone, soda ash, gypsum, salt, and phosphates; and energy source minerals such as coal and uranium. The Tanzania Investment Centre further highlights the nation’s significant natural gas reserves
Indeed, a fact sheet from the U.S. Agency for International Development estimated in 2018 that up to 80 per cent of Tanzania’s rural population relies on natural resources to sustain their livelihoods.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence above, even though the video depicting the claim is from Tanzania, the claim that Tanzania has no natural resources is false.
