Deceitful ‘Gates ad’ should have been locked out at the reception

It was Moses Gichuru who on Wednesday last week wrote to say he suspected the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation tender advert published on page 11 of the Sunday Nation of May 31, was “a con game”. He said some of the items to be supplied, including gas cylinders and regulators, and the tender fee of Sh4,100 per item “smell like a fraud”. He asked what steps NMG is taking “to ensure such advertisements are not sneaked in your credible newspaper again.”

The ad, indeed, had all the tell-tale signs of a scam. The typography — the font style, appearance and structure of the ad — save for the name of the foundation, was done with little skill and did not convey its image. The wording was ungrammatical in places and made poor use of punctuation marks and capital letters.

Sample these extracts: “The Supply Unit Division”, “TENDER FEES APPLY ksh4,100 per category after depositing money …” and “Interested firms who wish to receive Tender documents; Should send an email…”.

The tender was for the supply of seven different consumables but the quantity was the same — 885,605 for each — whether it was vegetable cooking oil, Nutripro porridge, table salt, rice, bar soap, maize meal or gas cylinders. The descriptions of the goods and packaging were also, in many cases, unclear. For example, “MAIZE MEAL-2KG BALE” and “MULTI-PURPOSE BAR SOAP-IKG BOX”.

The tender also said the ad was from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s regional office in Kenya — which does not exist.

And this was not the first of such fake tender ads. In February-March 2018, there was a fake tender published online for the supply of home appliances, building materials, animal feed, relief food and hair salon equipment to the “regional office in Kenya”.

NMG has a working relationship with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that goes back to 2016, when the foundation awarded NMG $1,230,099 (Sh123 million) for an “inform and engage communities” project. In 2019, the foundation again awarded NMG $2,843,095 for “global health and development public awareness and analysis”.

I asked the NMG commercial manager, James Sogoti, why the Sunday Nation was tricked into publishing the fake ad and why it took so long to tell readers it was a scam. They  were informed on Thursday last week, four days after its publication (“Investigations launched into fake Gates foundation tender ad,” Daily Nation, June 4, page 2).

Mr Sogoti said the publication of the fake ad was an “unfortunate transaction” which was “processed online, and this resulted in a service gap during this challenging times”.

He said the scammers seemed to have had “good information on the great partnership that exists between NMG and Bill & Melinda Gates, something they took advantage of while getting services of a relatively new staff”.

To mitigate against this happening in the future, Mr Sogoti explained, NMG is updating its client database with authorised contact details for people allowed to book ads, enforcing the “Know Your Client” process among its sales teams and retraining them on due diligence for booking ads, especially from new clients.

“NMG is also reviewing its online advertising services.

“We highly regret the errors,” said Mr Sogoti. “We remain committed to serving all our readers and partners. We shall continue tightening our stakeholder service systems to avoid any harmful content or loss of resources.”

While the measures taken by NMG are reassuring, fraudsters transform and metamorphose like a virus. The Nation, therefore, rightly advises readers to make appropriate enquiries before sending money, incurring any expense or entering into binding commitment in relation to an advertisement.

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