The post, in Amharic, reads in part: “There is no time to rush. For those of you who have started the process, your passport has been prepared, you can receive it after completing your remaining payments. Congratulations! Good news for Ethiopians and Eritreans. For the second round of 2016 E.C. (2024 G.C.), the Canadian government has made a new declaration offering free work opportunities to 36,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans. Citizens of Ethiopia and Eritrea who meet the following requirements are eligible to apply.”
PesaCheck reviewed the Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website and found no trace of the alleged jobs for Ethiopians and Eritreans. Besides, the phone number provided does not match any contact information listed by the IRCC or the Embassy of Canada in Ethiopia.
Isabelle Dubois, a communication adviser and spokesperson for the Canadian Government, denounced the claim when contacted by PesaCheck for comment on the subject.
“The claim is incorrect,” Dubois responded via email and explained that each immigration programme has specific application and eligibility criteria.
The official recommended the use of Immigration and citizenship website to those interested in temporary or permanent residence.
According to the embassy, all temporary residents, including visitors and international students, must meet the requirements set out in the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for visa issuance.
PesaCheck has looked into a post on X (formerly Twitter) claiming that the Canadian government is offering jobs to 36,000 Ethiopians and Eritreans and finds it to be a HOAX.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by a PesaCheck fact-checker based in Ethiopia (name withheld for security reasons) and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck’s managing editor Doreen Wainainah.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.
