A link containing a message that Unity Party Standard bearer and now President-elect – Joseph Nyumah Boakai is giving away a grant of L$3,500 to individual as appreciation for voting him in the November 14 runoff election is going viral. We verified the link and established that it is fake.
To arrive at this conclusion, our fact-checker tested the link by filling in the form inappropriately with any letter or number and was automatically selected as a beneficiary of the grant.
As part of the process, our fact-checker was also asked to answer three questions and after responding to the questions, the fact-checker was again selected as beneficiary requesting that he invite friends as the last option to obtain the grant.
After attempting to invite friends several times without succeeding deliberately, the fact-checker was again asked to select a type of receiving account between “Savings Account” and “Current Account”, and when he selected one of the options, he was again taken to a betting site, Premier Bet.
To further verify the link, we checked the official Facebook Page of the opposition Unity Party and found a statement issued by the party that “there is no such thing as “Appreciation fund” that is being given out by Amb. Boakai or the Unity Party”
The party has, however, cautioned citizens to stop sharing the link, describing it as “fake”.
Conclusion
Based on our research, we therefore conclude that the viral link with a claim that Unity Party Standard bearer and President-elect, Joseph Nyumah Boakai is offering a grant of L$3,500 to individual to show appreciation for voting him is fake.
The Unity Party has also termed the link as fake, noting that there is no such thing as appreciation fund from Amb. Boakai. This link can be used to steal your personal information or used as scam.
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