A Facebook page, bearing the name and image of Kenyan Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe with a post claiming to offer cash relief of Ksh18,000 to Kenyans in distress as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The post asks Kenyans to send their M-Pesa numbers to the account’s inbox in order to receive the cash directly in their mobile money wallets., However, the CS dismissed the claim that he is dishing out money to Kenyans through a Facebook page., Mr Kagwe told PesaCheck that the Facebook page does not belong to him and neither is he giving out any such grant as an individual., “I suspect that the page is being managed by opportunistic scammers who are obtaining people’s personal information and use it to steal from them. My personal Facebook account is verified,” he said, adding that he only has one account., Facebook Page Transparency for the imposter page shows that it was created on May 20, 2020, a day before the post offering cash was published. There is no Facebook page associated with CS Kagwe, who instead has a personal page that is verified and has posts dating back to 2010., The World Health Organization has warned against scammers who are taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to steal private information and money., PesaCheck has looked into a Facebook page claiming to belong to Health CS Mutahi Kagwe and offering Ksh18,000 as COVID-19 relief funds to Kenyans and finds it to be FAKE., This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms., By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds., Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content., This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker James Okong’o and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Enock Nyariki., The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi., PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org., PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)., Written by, Written by
HOAX: This Facebook page offering COVID-19 relief cash is fake