BY KWANELE TSABEDZE
MBABANE – The Ministry of Agriculture has come out to warn the public on the rise of fake messages purporting to be offering grants by the Ministry.
These fake messages have been proliferating on social media, primarily Facebook.
The Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry, Sydney Simelane made a statement to the media today, advising the public on how to verify the information by the Ministry, and how to spot Facebook pages falsely representing the Ministry.
“We encourage anyone to verify any online information regarding our services, by either calling the Ministry of Agriculture on 20404 2732 or visiting the nearest office in person. This will help confirm the authenticity of any news or offers relating to Agricultural grants,” said the PS.
He added that the public can also check for the authenticity of the Facebook page where they see the information.
“To help differentiate our official Facebook page from fake ones, please take note of the following; the official Ministry of Agriculture page has about 8,000 followers, while fake pages usually possess a smaller number; the content posted on our page dates back to 2021,” said the PS.
The PS highlighted that if a page seems new, then it is likely a fake page and not the official Ministry of Agriculture channel for communicating on social media.
The Ministry of Agriculture has had to advise the public of fake information on grants, following sponsored posts by bad actors who claimed that the Ministry was offering grants. This is not an isolated incident, as the Government also had to correct similar misinformation regarding higher education certifications offered by the Government.
The public is advised not to fill out any forms online which require personal or banking information before verifying that the information is indeed 100% accurate.
