This Facebook account offering jobs in Canada and the United States of America (USA) in the name of Egesa FM station manager James Gichana is a HOAX.

Egesa FM is one of the radio stations in the Royal Media Services stable. It broadcasts in the Ekegusii language.

The account ‘James Gichana (Omoiberania)’ uses Gichana’s photo and has a bio that reads: “Works at Royal Media Services Limited.”

The account has made several posts, including this and this purporting to offer opportunities in Canada and the USA.

A search on Facebook established that several accounts use the Egesa station manager’s name, but none is verified.

We checked Egesa FM’s verified Facebook page for information on Gichana’s legitimate account and established that the page had tagged this account on several of its posts. This confirms that it is the station manager’s authentic Facebook account.

The account uses ‘Omoiberania Inchikobagora’ and had over 4,900 friends as of 8 August 2023.

We browsed through Gichana’s legitimate Facebook account and found no posts offering overseas jobs. Instead, we found this statement disowning the account in question.

“A reminder to the public that this is a fake page using my photos and my name to con desperate Kenyans. I have reported the page to the police and I hope the culprits will be arrested soon. My official page is Chitange nchibagora na Omoiberania. Be warned! Don’t be conned !!!!

Egesa FM also disowned the account and urged the public to disregard it.

“Kindly note that this is a fake account using the name of James Gichana Omoiberania — Station manager Egesa fm. Don’t be conned,” Egesa FM posted.

PesaCheck examined a Facebook account offering jobs in Canada and the United States of America in the name of Egesa FM station manager James Gichana 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 Rodgers Omondi 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.