Fraudsters target Munna Ndi Nnyi

The email address of the non-profit organisation, Munna Ndi Nny, was recently hacked and all emails diverted to unknown fraudsters who used the organisation's name to apply for funding from different structures in the country.

The fraudsters sent emails to different businesspeople and government structures, such as the Legal Aid Board South Africa and the Public Protector, claiming that the director of Munna Ndi Nnyi, Mr Bardwell Mufunwaini, was stranded in the Phillipines after losing his luggage, including his wallet and passport.

“People were requested to send money to an account unknown to me and the organisation,” said Mufunwaini.

He added that he was made aware of the fraud after the Public Protector had written him a letter in response. In this response, the Public Protector explained that they couldn't help with regard to the lack of water and his request for money to help the Matsila and Njhakanjhaka communities.

“I was shocked when I got the letter responding to my alleged letter to the Public Protector, because I didn't remember ever writing to the Public Protector,” said Mufunwaini. “If the people at Matsila and Njhakanjhaka don't have water, the municipality is the right body to approach and not Munna Ndi Nnyi,” he said.

According to Mufunwaini, people were using his email to commit this kind of fraud while he couldn't open and read his mails. “All my mails were being received by unscrupulous people,” he said. “We suspect that there's an insider working with the crooks.”

Mufunwaini said that they would call a board meeting to try and address the case and see if internal investigations could be carried out to reveal the perpetrator in this case. “The fraudster lies and applies for personal things while using the organisation's name,” said Mufunwaini.

Munna Ndi Nnyi stopped using the old email address and registered a new one, namely [email protected].

Date:14 March 2014

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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