RUNDU – Police in Kavango West are warning locals to be on guard for a suspected scam, where organisations register people for educational and financial support, among others.
Kavango West police commander, Commissioner Josephat Abel said they were investigating two organisations visiting local communities in the region.
According to Abel, members of the two organisations were registering people allegedly for educational and financial support as well as old mineworkers who reportedly worked in South African mines to claim money from the mines.
They are reportedly asking local people to pay registration fees. Abel said they were suspecting fraud and have so far confiscated some of the documents, while investigations against the two organisations were ongoing.
“They are going around our communities specifically here in the two Kavango regions and I heard also in Zambezi. Last week there was a group of people registering people here apparently for education, for business plans and also for assisting with finance,” Abel said.
“We intercepted them and we confiscated their documents so that we can investigate the authenticity of their registrations.” Abel said the group, which is charging a registration fee of N$100, had registered up to 20 000 people.
“To us we saw it as just another form of a scam to collect money from our vulnerable people and they will disappear after they have registered enough money and the people will wait for the benefits and they won’t get it,” he said.
Another suspicious registration which the police in Kavango West are questioning is the one currently registering old and retired mineworkers who worked in South African mines from 1948 until 1978.
With this specific organisation, an administration fee of N$300 is being asked per person. “I have a problem with that because just few years back remember there used to be a registration of ex-Koevoet going on around the country and up to date they never got any cent while they wasted their money for registration,” he said.
–jmuyamba@nepc.com.na