A fraudulent recruitment portal for the Uganda Wildlife Authority has been circulating in WhatsApp groups, claiming to offer job opportunities. The link prompts users to enter their personal data to apply, but instead of leading to job openings, it directs them to share the link further to apply. This approach is suspicious and commonly used in phishing scams to access people's personal information through false promises.
PesaCheck, a fact-checking initiative, investigated the portal and found it to be a hoax. A Whois search revealed that the website was registered by Namecheap, Inc. in January 2026, whereas the official UWA website was registered on 24 July 2009 under the domain ugandawildlife.org. This significant difference in registration dates raises red flags about the legitimacy of the portal.
To verify the recruitment portal's authenticity, PesaCheck contacted Bashir Hangi, the UWA public relations officer, who confirmed that it was not authentic. "That's fake. We have already flagged it as such," Hangi said by telephone. This confirmation from the UWA's official representative further supports the finding that the portal is a hoax.
A review of UWA's X (formerly Twitter) account shows that the agency had indeed flagged the portal as fake. Additionally, the UWA website features a notice warning that communications are done through official channels published on the website. This notice serves as a reminder to the public to be cautious when receiving information about job opportunities from unofficial sources.
A look at UWA's careers portal shows that the most recent job advertised had a deadline of 1 June 2026. Legitimate job postings typically have clear deadlines and are published through official channels. In contrast, the hoax portal's requirement for users to share the link further to apply is a common tactic used by scammers to spread their schemes.
PesaCheck is part of an ongoing series of 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 and provide the public with deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
PesaCheck was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein and is being incubated by Code for Africa. The initiative 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 public services.
Key points
- The fake recruitment portal was registered in January 2026, while the official UWA website was registered in 2009.
- The UWA public relations officer confirmed that the portal was not authentic.
- PesaCheck is working to combat misinformation on social media platforms through fact-checking initiatives.
