South African ruling party the African National Congress (ANC) has warned against a fake Facebook account claiming to be that of deputy secretary general (DSG) Jessie Duarte.
The ANC said the account had been used to “mislead the public and it makes promises about giving money to unsuspecting users”.
The party said it, as well as Duarte, distanced itself from the promises made by the owner of the account.
“We condemn this as unscrupulous and misleading to the public. We want to alert the public that should they come across any of such messages, they should be reported and ignored. The ANC will never make false promises about monies that will not be paid,” ANC national spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said.
The organisation said it was talking to Facebook to see what actions could be taken.
“We hope that our engagement with Facebook will result in such messages being detected and destroyed before they reach the public,” it said.
HumanIPO reported earlier this year the ANC Twitter account had been hacked following a African Anonymous hack of the party’s website last year.
The Tweets made by the hacker made references to alleged corruption by President Jacob Zuma.
