Public works warns of scam targeting students

THE Department of Public Works has warned students and graduates seeking employment, about a scam promising 700 learnerships at the department. The scam promises to place students in a number of fields including brick-laying, plumbing, carpentry, boiler-making, tiling and others.

Spokesperson for the department, Thami Mchunu, said while the department has trained and continues to train hundreds of youth in these fields, the recruitment on the internet through social networks, SMS and WhatsApp is a scam.

“The fraudulent recruitment has a link which takes the learnership programme seekers to a Jobs Department website. The headline on the site reads Public Works Learnership Programmes. When you click on the application for jobs, it further links you to a Facebook sign up page, requesting personal information like name and surname, date of birth, phone or email address,” he said.

Mchunu said the contact people on the recruitment site, Ester Sehlapelo and Linda Kaseke, do not work for the department.

“The Department of Public Works is an equal opportunity employer and would never exclusively advertise jobs and learnership programmes on the internet and social media because that would exclude a large number of South Africans not on social media,” said Mchunu.

He advised everyone that is interested in applying for learnerships at the department to verify the legitimacy of the posts before divulging personal information.