Post falsely claims to show photo of Kenyans with cheap gas cylinders from government

This article is more than one year old.
Published on June 5, 2023 at 16:13
2 min read
By James OKONG'O, AFP Kenya

A photo of women carrying gas cylinders is being shared on social media alongside a claim it shows people in Central Kenya who bought cheap cooking gas promised by the government in March. But this is false; the image features residents in Trans Nzoia, Kenya who received free cylinders from their local representative.

The post was published on Facebook on May 25, 2023, and has been shared more than 200 times.

Written in Swahili, the post translates to: “Thank you, President Ruto, we have found the 300-shilling cooking gas.”

Screenshot showing the false post, taken on June 2, 2023

The image was also shared in a tweet written in a mix of English and Swahili that reads: “Somewhere in Central, 300-shilling gas cylinders are available.”

Cheap gas pledge

In February, President William Ruto pledged (archived here) to drop all taxes on cooking gas to ease the burden of high living costs for Kenyans.

A month later, Ruto vowed (archived here) to lower the cost of refilling a six-kilogramme gas cylinder by June to between 300 shillings ($2) and 500 shillings, down from 1,300 shillings. However, he later said that the plan could not materialise (archived here) within the timeframe.

A crosscheck at the beginning of June by AFP Fact Check in Nairobi’s major cooking gas retail stores -- including Total and Rubis -- found that refilling a six-kilogramme cylinder costs between 1,200 and 1,300 shillings while buying and refilling an empty cylinder costs between 2,500 to 2,800 shillings.

But the photo shared on social media does not show Kenyans with cheap government-pledged cooking gas.

Gifts

Using a reverse image search, AFP Fact Check found that the picture was taken in Trans Nzoia county in Western Kenya.

The county is about 400 kilometres from Kiambu, one of the major towns in Central Kenya.

The photo shows cooking gas cylinders that were gifted to residents of Matisi ward in Trans Nzoia by politician Obed Mwale on May 23, 2023.

Mwale is the Matisi ward member of the County Assembly. In Kenya, the ward is the smallest electoral and administrative unit followed by the constituency, the county and the country.

Mwale confirmed that he had given the cylinders to residents of his ward.

“The gas distribution is my initiative as a leader to provide clean cooking energy to the residents of my ward,” he told AFP Fact Check.

Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.

E-mail