By Tendai Matunhu
Government of Zimbabwe is advising its citizens that all agricultural equipment meant to benefit the citizenry from whatever source is distributed through appropriate Government departments in Zimbabwe following a devised plan to rob fellow Zimbabweans through scams by some Zimbabwean citizens living in the Republic of South Africa.
This was said by the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Dr Misheck J Sibanda in a Press Statement that was released today.
Part of the statement reads, “It has come to the attention of the Government that there are individuals and entities of Zimbabwe extraction based in the Republic of South Africa who have devised a plan to rob fellow Zimbabweans in Zimbabwe of their hard earned cash through wicked scam.
“At the centre of the scam is a purported gift from the Government of the Republic of South Africa to the people of Zimbabwe supposedly to help the latter boost their agricultural productivity. For the record, there is no such program between the two Governments as of today,” it reads.
In the Statement, Dr Sibanda went on to explain that unsuspecting individuals are phoned from South Africa by conmen and told that they have been allocated tractors, centre pivots and other farm implements. The individuals are asked to play their part in meeting the transportation costs of transporting the items to Zimbabwe. He said the money demanded by the fraudsters varied from R8000-00 to R20 000-00.
He says the conmen pretend to be Ambassadors of Zimbabwe to South Africa and that they used to target Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Members of Parliament and Senior Civil Servants. He said the pattern was now developing to target the faith community as well.
“Targets are being nudged into scam through massive propaganda to the effect that if they do not take the offer within a certain time period, they would lose to one of the many supposed beneficiaries in the queue. Citizens are advised that such a programme is non-existent,” read the statement.
Government has urged people to exercise extreme caution when dealing with supposed offers of this nature.
