By The National Agricultural Marketing Council (NAMC) has distanced itself from Tiger Agriculture, saying the company has been illegally using NAMC’s logo to give the impression that they work with them.
Tiger Agriculture has attracted a number of people in Bloemfontein, Free State to invest in the business. People are urged to buy membership and seedlings, of which they obtain every Monday to Friday, if a person buys seedlings worth of R85, they obtain R3.74. Members are also encouraged to recruit new members and they get a referral bonus every time a person joins under them.
A member of Tiger Agriculture told The Businesses Weekly that they have lost a lot of money last week. The member said Tiger Agriculture had a Black Friday subsidy and made everyone to invest huge amounts to have more money, the unsuspecting victims fell for it and now their money has vanished.
In its profile, Tiger Agriculture claims that it has been mandate by the government to recruit and empower people through agriculture; it has the logo of the Department of Agriculture, Fishery and Forestry on it to suggest that it works in partnership with the department. The Business Weekly further searched for the company on the Companies Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC), it is registered since 2013.
The Business Weekly tried to contact the Tiger Agriculture for comment, but our efforts were in vain, their website does not even work.
NAMC told The Business Weekly that they don’t know Tiger Agriculture, they only got to know about the organisation when they were receiving complaints from the public about the company, they thought they are associated with Tiger Agriculture.
The Spokesperson for NAMC Mr David Mohale says they do not know of Tiger Agriculture’s legalities even their existence.
“We think it is the responsibility of members of the public to exercise their due diligence when they associate themselves with any organisation. If they suspect that they are being hoodwinked, they can then engage law enforcement agencies for intervention,” said Mohale.
Mohale said NAMC had issued out statements before to caution members of society from associating with Tiger Agriculture based on the assumption that they claimed to be working with NAMC. He said the Council does not know whether the organisation is fraudulent or not.
“As we have already stated, NAMC cannot determine that they are scamming people. We do not even know the business they are doing. We only warned members of the public that the NAMC is not in any shape or form associated with Tiger Agriculture. Law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction to determine whether they are a scam or otherwise,” said David Mohale.
“Depending on how they have been affected by the operations of Tiger Agriculture, they can open a case at the nearest police station to them. And so far, we do not know if there is someone who has been scammed.
Our interest was only in clarifying our position and warn members of the public about the fraudulent usage of our logo.
Please note that the NAMC is not in partnership with Tiger Agriculture and if you feel aggrieved or suspect that you have been scammed, please open a case with law enforcement agencies for investigation. We do not have that competence as the National Agricultural Marketing Council,” he concluded.
The Business Weekly has sent an inquiry to the Department of Agriculture, the department is yet to respond whether they know and work with Tiger Agriculture.
