CLAIM: Zimbabwe was able to generate US$9.77 billion in mineral revenue, making it the 10th African country to export the largest volumes of natural resources last year.
SOURCE: Daily News Zimbabwe, The Chronicle and Mining Zimbabwe
VERDICT: False
On 30 May 2023 the Daily News tweeted that ‘despite illegal sanctions, Zimbabwe was able to generate US$9.77 billion in mineral revenue, making it the 10th African country to export the largest volumes of natural resources last year’.
Credit: NewZWire
The tweet provided a link to a story published by the paper on the same day headlined, Zimbabwe generates US$9.7bn worth of mineral exports.
The story, with the byline ‘staff writer’, states that ‘according to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analyst wing of the Economist Group, Mining Zimbabwe, the country is likely to improve its position on the list if it achieves its target of a US$12 billion mining industry by the end of 2023’.
Checks by FactCheckZW showed the same article published by The Chronicle on 1 June 2023 headlined, Zimbabwe generates US$9,77bn mineral exports, ranked 10th largest exporter on continent and a byline simply saying The Chronicle.
The two stories look like a re-production of an article by Mining Zimbabwe published on 29 May with the headline, Zimbabwe Ranks 10th African Country with Booming Mineral Exports.
The two stories from the Chronicle and the Daily News are the same except for one or two words. They even have the same sentence which says, ‘According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the research and analyst of the Economist Group, Mining Zimbabwe, the country is likely to improve its position on the list if it achieves its target of a US$12 billion mining industry by the end of 2023.’
Mining Zimbabwe in this paragraph seems to be a typo emanating from the fact that this story is being re-produced from an article by Mining Zimbabwe. This would suggest that the two publications carried the story which was written by the same person, despite what the by lines say.
Looking at the original Mining Zimbabwe story, it seemingly gives a link to the Economist Intelligence Unit, which, however, only leads one to an article by the Business Insider dated 25 May with the headline, Top 10 richest mineral-producing countries in Africa. The Business Insider attributes the figures to ‘a research report conducted by the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper, Economist Intelligence Unit’ but also does not provide a link to the report.
The Economist Intelligence Unit
Created in 1946, The Economist Intelligence Unit describes itself as a unit that ‘helps you understand the world and prosper within it’. Exploring the site, FactCheckZW attempted to access the report that all these articles seem to be based on, using different search words and phrases, with no success.
However, there is an article on the site, African mining sector looks to the future, that is relevant to this fact check.
Verification
Zimbabwe is looking to hit USD 12 billion in mineral production by the year 2023 set out in a Strategic Road to the Achievement of USD 12 billion by the year 2023, launched by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on 14 October 2019.
In 2022, Zimbabwe’s earnings from minerals were US$5.627 billion, according to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in its Monetary Policy Statement in February 2023. This was up from US$5 billion in 2021.
In an article in the Sunday Mail, Zimbabwe’s Mining minister is quoted as saying, ‘In 2022, the mining industry attained US$5,4 billion in exports against a targeted projection of US$8 billion. In comparison with the base year, 2017, wherein the mining sector’s annual revenue amounted to US$2,7 billion, the mining sector has demonstrated a 100 percent increase in terms of mineral exports.’
To further verify, FactCheckZW looked at South African figures to check if the article got them right.
According to the articles on Zimbabwe’s USD 9.77 billion mineral exports being 10th, South Africa was ranked first with a mineral production worth USD 124.96 billion for the year 2022.
However, FactCheckZW could not find any evidence to back this up.
According to StatsSA and the Minerals Council South Africa, South Africa minerals exports hit a record high of R1.18 trillion in 2022, the second time it had breached the trillion rand mark.
In today’s exchange rate, that would be about USD 64 billion.
Minerals Council South Africa Chief Executive Officer, Roger Baxter, in a 2022 report, published in early 2023, said, ‘The mining industry remained a trillion rand industry for the second year running when measured in production value, despite the headwinds it endured in 2022.’
This is the almost the same figure that is quoted in an article by the Economist Intelligence Unit (mentioned earlier) published 22 March 2023, ‘Nevertheless, total mineral sales were reported at R880bn (US$54bn) in 2022, up by 3% from the previous record high of R856bn in 2021, according to Statistics South Africa. A broader measure of the value of South Africa’s mining production, as reported by the Minerals Council South Africa, an industry organisation, was R1.2trn in 2022, up from R1.1trn in 2021.’
The Minerals Council South Africa figure of R1.2 trillion is probably rounded off from the organisation’s actual figure of R1.18 trillion.
This is in sharp contrast to the USD124.96 billion figure for the South African mineral exports revenue given in the articles by The Daily News, The Chronicle, Mining Zimbabwe and Africa Business Insider.
Credit: ZimLive
Conclusion
The claim that ‘Zimbabwe was able to generate US$9.77 billion in mineral revenue, making it the 10th African country to export the largest volumes of natural resources last year’ has been rated as false. The claim was made by the Daily News and The Chronicle which carried the same article and by Mining Zimbabwe, which carried a slightly different version of it. FactCheckZW could not find any link to the report quoted and all other statistics from Zimbabwe and South Africa do not show the revenues of USD 9.77 billion and USD 124.96 billion reported in the articles for the two countries, respectively. An article by the EIU does not cite those figures, either, in reference to South Africa’s mineral Exports.
