Misleading! Link soliciting applications for ad hoc staff for Ghana’s EC expired

By Philip Tengzu, Info Radio

Photo credit: Asaase Radio

Claim: WhatsApp users share a link that the Electoral Commission is recruiting ad hoc staff.

Verdict: Misleading! Details on the link showed that Ghana's Electoral Commission (EC) is seeking ad hoc staff for the 2024 general elections. The call for application is true and the link is authentic but the application window is over.

Full Text

In recent times, recruitment advertising online has become one of the most popular employment advertisement methods. However, online job hunting has risks that individuals must be wary of and take necessary precautions against.

A call for applications from Ghana’s Electoral Commission (EC) is making rounds on social media, particularly WhatsApp, with the caption “ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF GHANA 2024 AD HOC STAFF RECRUITMENT.” Evidence of this application can be found here.

Photo credit: Philip Tengzu

The link was shared on a WhatsApp platform called “REAL BABILIANS” on April 30, 2024, and a group member warned: “Please be careful with this blog: it will lead you somewhere.” The link was repeated in the same WhatsApp group on May 4, 2024, and has been widely shared on many other WhatsApp groups.

Noticing how viral the post has gone and the application process directing applicants to share with groups and individuals until a bar in the application portal becomes full, the researcher decided to verify the post. 

Verification

In an attempt to investigate the claim, the researcher clicked on the link which took the researcher to a page that looked exactly like that of the Electoral Commission of Ghana.

The researcher continued with the portion of the page that said “Proceed to start the application here” which has the logo of the Electoral Commission.

The researcher then entered his details—full name, gender, email address, and phone number—and clicked on the “Continue” button. This took the researcher to an interface that required him to “Invite friends/groups.” It said, “Share until the bar is full!”

The researcher then became suspicious of the process. Links of this nature are usually very suspicious as that could lead you to fall victim to scammers. 

The researcher then checked the link’s authenticity using Scam Adviser and saw that the link review had a high trust score of 85/100. 

“It seems that ec-ghana-jobs.blogspot.com is legitimate and safe to use and not a scam website. The review of ec-ghana-jobs.blogspot.com is positive. The positive trust score is based on an automated analysis of 40 different data sources we checked online such as the technology used, the location of the company, other websites found on the same web server, etcetera,” Scam Adviser revealed.

Also, a scan of the link on VirusTotal showed that "no security vendors flagged this URL as malicious.” The security vendors rated the website as clean. 

However, checks on the EC’s website showed no advertisement for the 2024 recruitment of ad hoc staff.

Further checks were done at the Upper West Regional Office of the EC, where Mr Ali Osman, the Regional Director of the EC, told the researcher that the link calling for applications was true, but the application window had closed. 

Conclusion

The link circulating on WhatsApp for applications for Ghana’s EC 2024 ad hoc recruitment 2024 is misleading because while the link is authentic, the application window is over. The commission no longer accepts applications.

The researcher produced this explainer as part of the requirements of the DUBAWA 2024 Kwame KariKari Fellowship, in partnership with Info Radio, Ghana.