A website link containing a message that incumbent President George Weah is giving out “L$35,000 cash as grants for all Liberians” to rally their support online for his re-election is now going viral. Our fact check this found it to be fake.
To verify the claim shared this link, we first checked the official Facebook page of President George Weah but did not see any information about the President giving out L$35,000.00 as grant to Liberian youths.
We then analyzed the link using an online tool, Scamdoc. This tool evaluates “digital identities” reliability (email address or website). This tool analyses the viral link’s trust index and declares it as average or 50% safe, adding that more investigations are necessary to establish more “trust” in the site.
A further analysis of this link by our Fact-checking Desk shows that when you click on the link, there are three options (Name, Email and County) that pop up – a user will have to fill in and proceed to the next page in order to access the grant.
Once an applicant fills in the three blank options with any letter or number and clicks APPLY, he or she will be directed to the next option which is asking for the applicant’s gender, and once this is done, the applicant will automatically be eligible to apply.
But we noticed that once the applicant’s eligibility is confirmed, he/she is asked in the next option to share the opportunity with five groups or ten people on WhatsApp before proceeding to the payment plan. The payment plan shows nothing further.
The screenshots above show the basic steps that lead you to nowhere when you attempt applying for the grant
To further verify this claim, we contacted President Weah’s Campaign Spokesman Kanio Bai Gbala through a text message. He responded that he has no information regarding the offer and that it was an internet hoax.
Replies Cllr. Gbala: “I absolutely have no idea. This is an internet hoax.”
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we conclude that the viral message with claims that President Weah is giving L$35,000 as grant is fake. Our verdict is based on a review of the President’s official Facebook Page where we did not see any information regarding the grant opportunities for Liberian Youths. And we also contacted his campaign spokesman who said he has no idea about the grant opportunity and that it was an internet hoax.
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.
