The Women Enterprise Fund chief executive officer in the Western region Collins Oduor said many women have fallen into the trap of fraudsters masquerading as officials from the fund carrying out training, processing applications, and registration exercises for business loans.
“We have received cases of our members and even received cases of women being conned by fraudsters who have been forming groups and carrying out member registration at a fee of Sh500 and training them while promising to give women affordable loans to do business,” Oduor said.
Speaking in Kakamega town during an awareness forum organised by the Western region Women Enterprise Fund, Oduor said the fund does not charge any fee for loan applications as alleged by conmen who have been deceiving women groups across the region.
“Our members must be wary of fraudsters who have been putting five women in one group and charging them Sh500 for loan applications. Women Enterprise Fund is an institution mandated to serve Kenyan citizens and at no point do we charge our members fee for loan application,” Oduor said.
“To end this conmanship from imposers pretending to be our officials, let us have a coordinated approach with our members to report any cases where they are required to pay for various services. Our members should know the moment they are asked to pay for a certain service that is a red flag and they should report because as enterprise fund, we do not charge any fee for any service,” he added.
Oduor said the fund is arranging an array of activities to have a nationwide awareness tours especially during the festive season where fraudsters are out to make money through dubious means.
“The festive season is a beehive of activities and people are looking for loans and money, and fraudsters have taken that advantage to steal from people. We need to sensitise our women who are prone to conmen on how to spot and identify impersonators who are out to steal from them,” Oduor said.
Oduor said the conmen have split into two groups, one that purports to register women for loan applications and the other group pretending to carry out training and education of members.
“We have structures on how we carry out our training and field tours to our members. Those people coming to women's homes and holding trainings are fraudsters and we are urging our members to report any such cases they come across to us and police so that we can follow up and establish people who are stealing from women,” Oduor said.
Western region police commander Kiprono Langat said they are working with the enterprise fund and any other funds to catch the people masquerading as officials to steal from innocent Kenyans.
“We are urging members of the public to be vigilant and report any fraud cases so that we can save many people from being conned because we are aware of conmen around camouflaging from one entity to another, and I assure our people that our officers are always ready,” Langat said.
