By William Madouk Garang
The Ministry of Agriculture & Food Security has called on farmers and the public to be wary of fraudsters who are fleecing money from people.
Prof. Mathew Gordon Udo, the undersecretary in the Ministry of Agriculture distanced his docket from dubious business floating online and warned public not to fall prey by putting their hard earn money into masqueraders’ accounts.
“The administration of the MAFS has strongly refuted the FAKE GRANT FUND LETTER concocted to be written by the Hon. Minister of Agriculture & Food Security. All the information presented in the fake letter is false and MAFS leadership has distanced itself from it,” Udo said in a public notice.
“We are therefore informing the general public of South Sudan not to be attempted to participate in this dubious/fake business advertisement. MAFS leadership has NO LINK with this business network,” he added.
Mr. Udo stated that the logo and signature of the minister used in the said letter of grant fund are not well-matched to the usual template of Minister Josephine Joseph Lagu’s signature and office logo.
He further advised the public not to attempt to fill any form or deposit their money into the fake account number mentioned in the Facebook application form.
“This is a complete hoax to extract money from general public which needs to be refuted and condemned in the strongest term,” Udo noted.
Undersecretary, Prof. Udo also appealed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Kenya Embassy in Juba to take lead in tracing these suspicious activities since they are connected to financial institutions in Kenya.
He was reacting to a fake link on Facebook that claims, minister Lagu is a chairlady of the verification and approval committee – task is to scrutinize and endorse the application of successful applicants for grant fund.
It continues to indicate that there are number of attachment documents which are needed to be presented with application forms to the committee.
“This indicates the following: Farmers Business Network (FBN) certificate of accreditation which is supposed to be a mandatory requirement by the policies and regulation set by African Union to regulate the disbursement of donor fund,” Udo explained.
“The allegations continue to present the list of professional organizations and banks in Kenya which are involved in this transaction. A mention of fess for different activities are also presented,” he added.