HOAX: This Uganda National Oil Company job advert is fake
This job advert shared by WhatsApp users purporting that the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) is recruiting is a HOAX.
Upon clicking on the link, the available information suggests that UNOC is recruiting for various positions without specifying. To proceed, users are prompted to complete an attached form, providing their names, email addresses, and phone numbers.
In addition to personal information, users are asked three more questions about their education level, gender, and citizenship status in Uganda. Although the available jobs are not listed, comments from individuals who claim to have already benefited are displayed.
After completing the application process, a notification prompts users to share the link with other WhatsApp users. Above this notification is an image that we subjected to a Google reverse image search, revealing that it was uploaded on the UNOC website and the Government of Uganda X (formerly Twitter) account in July 2023, during Buganda Katikkiro (Prime minister) Peter Mayiga’s visit to the oil projects in the Albertine region.
However, requiring applicants to share the link further raises suspicion, resembling phishing scams. PesaCheck has debunked similar claims before and found them to be hoaxes.
Additionally, PesaCheck examined the website’s registration details to ascertain the authenticity of the advertised jobs. A Whois search revealed it was registered in Iceland on 19 November 2023, but under Registrant Contact, the organisation name is withheld.
In a message to PesaCheck, UNOC confirmed that the recruitment portal is fake.
“It’s a scam,” said Peter Muliisa, the chief legal officer and company secretary, in a WhatsApp message.
Reviewing the company’s Facebook page and the website’s careers section, where they typically post job openings, yielded no matches with the advert under scrutiny.
On X, the recruitment portal was flagged as a scam.
PesaCheck looked into a job advert shared by WhatsApp users purporting that the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) is recruiting staff and found it to be a HOAX.
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 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 Flavia Nassaka and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah
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 an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
