The image dates back to at least October 2020, before UPND took over the government.
This Facebook post with an image of toilets claimed to be part of the development by the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND) is false.
The image shows rows of toilets facing each other and the post reads: “UPND congratulations for building public toilet’s. This is the development you promised!.”
The post does not indicate where the supposed toilets are, or when they were constructed.
To determine the authenticity of the post and the origin of the image, a Google reverse image search was conducted. The search shows that the image seemingly surfaced three years ago in May 2021 when it appeared on a Reddit post.
Additional reverse searches on Yandex on TinEye also found records of the image dating back to October 2020 as seen here.
None of the posts identify Zambia as the location of the toilets.
Notably, at the time the UPND government, led by President Hakainde Hichilema, was still in opposition and they only assumed office in August 2021 after Hichilema won the general elections.
Further, a call was made to the Lusaka City Council (LCC) who are responsible for implementing such projects on +260 976 831 025 and the Public Relations Manager Chola Mwamba refuted the claim and distanced themselves from it. LCC’S Facebook page also had no trace of such a project ever having been implemented.
This fact-check was produced by Bloggers of Zambia, under the African Fact-Checking Incubator programme, with support from PesaCheck, Code for Africa’s fact-checking initiative, and the African Fact-Checking Alliance(AFCA).
