Claim: “RIA Road Completing Stage”
Verdict: Misleadingly, the road construction is not from Liberia
Source: social media user (Albert P. Wayne)
Full Text: A social media user, Albert P. Wayne, posted the above image to a public group’s (Fries FM) followers, indicating that the ongoing road construction of the ELWA to RIA road is nearing completion.
The post received 347 replies and 194 comments, with some thanking the administration and others questioning the message’s veracity. “Wow 😮!!!!Liberia is moving to another level. The RIA Road is at the completion stage. See the beauty of Tower Hill.”
The 45-kilometer Roberts International Airport (RIA) road project began in September 2021 and was intended to be completed in three years, with a target completion date of 2024. It is expected to cost USD 116 million. East International is the project’s general contractor. When finished, the extended RIA highway will be a four-lane road
Image credit: Construction Africa
Verification: TSM used Google Image Search to verify the image and discovered that the image used by the social media was published in this article on June 24, 2021, by partner institution Dubawa titled “Viral image purported to be Accra-Kumasi highway false.” In the article, a Facebook user, John Kwadwo Stephens, has shared a post that purportedly shows the construction and the completed stage of a highway as a part of the fleet of roads constructed by the government.
Another article with the same image title as Dubawa was “Chinese consortium to build US$650 million toll road in cash-strapped Zambia, but will it pay off?” published on March 10, 2023. The article read, “A consortium of Chinese companies will finance the upgrading of a 327km (203-mile) road linking the Zambian capital Lusaka to Ndola, in the country’s Copperbelt province, after years of false starts.”
Other publications of the image can be found here, here, and here.
Conclusion: After our search, the image by Wayne is misleading; the image posted has no link to Liberia and it is not an image of the ongoing work on the RIA road.
