A Facebook account bearing the name and logo of the Ministry of Agriculture has a post about a grant opportunity for small farmers, but a check of the page and post turnout to be a fake.
The page made a post on August 6, the same day it was created with information and a link for small farmers to apply for an EU-funded grant.
The link in the post, which generated over 300 reactions with about 90 comments and 37 shares as of August 8, takes you to a google form asking for personal information about individuals and their farm.
Irrespective of how you fill the Google form, a few days later you will receive an email from an email account identified as Caroline Gay carolineegaye@gmail.com acknowledging receipt of your online application with a PDF file attached.
The email then instructs you to download the PDF file and fill it with pen and send it to a different email address infogrants@miniagricgov.com.
What Did We Find
We also first checked the page transparency section and found that it was created on August 6, 2023 and has no contact and basic information. It has only 36 followers, 26 likes and carry the same profile and cover photos as the official Facebook page of the Ministry of Agriculture with over 60,000 followers.
We also checked the official website and official Facebook page of the Ministry but did not find any information about grant opportunity for farmers to apply. The Ministry has no such post about grant for smallholder farmers and its last post was published on July 27, 2023 about a regional agribusiness ecosystem involving Mano River Union Countries
To further verify this claim, we also spoke to Mr. Ansu Konneh, Communications Consultant at the Ministry of Agriculture via mobile phone, who confirmed by saying that “page and the information posted on it were fake”.
Mr. Konneh added that the EU and the Ministry are preparing a joint statement to address the fake Facebook page and the post.
Conclusion
Based on the evidence from our review of the page and the post, we conclude that the information being shared about a smallholder farmers grant is fake.
Therefore, we are cautioning Facebook users to avoid opening or sharing the link or the post. This may be a scam to steal your personal information or steal from you.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.