A Facebook post claiming the Rwanda’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN) is providing financial grants for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to recover from the economic crisis is fake.

The content of the post states “we have teamed up with the RWANDA’S COUNTRY DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION and GEN to support SMEs by granting them financial grants to help them recover from the economic crisis.”

The author then invites “interested individuals/businesses who wish to be included in this funding program to learn more and submit their applications.”  It then leads unsuspecting applicants to an online page to fill in and submit their personal details including names, contact details, and others.

The post was published on a Facebook page in the names of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.

However, our fact-check on the page shows it is fake. The official Facebook page of the Ministry, which was created on April 8, 2013, is verified. This one is not.

A further review of the page reveals the ‘fake’ page was created this year on February 3 when it reproduced six previous posts on the treasury’s page and then included the post in question. The page has not been updated since.

Besides, MINECOFIN has dismissed the post as fake, and urged the public to disregard it.

“Any support provided to businesses affected by Covid19 pandemic is channeled through the Economic Recovery Fund,” the ministry said in a message posted on its official Facebook and Twitter accounts Monday and Tuesday respectively.