President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has bitterly lasted at greedy officials mismanaging the Pariah Development Model poverty eradication program, warning he will not relent in whipping the culprits.
The bitter Head of State made the revelation during his address to the nation at Kololo IndependenceGround on Wednesday, 7.
Through PDM, Museveni said that the Governmwnt is committed to creating wealth and jobs by moving households from the non-money economy to the money economy.
To achieve this goal, he elaborate that the Government launched the Parish Development Model to accelerate socio-economic transformation. Using this approach, 39% households which are currently in the non-money economy (the majority of whom are in subsistence agriculture), will move into the money economy.
The Parish Development Model will also increase incomes, improve quality of life and eradicate poverty at household level through modernisation of agriculture, industrialisation, improved services delivery and using modern communication technologies. Agriculture will be transformed from subsistence to commercial.
This approach will organize and deliver Public and Private Sector interventions for wealth creation and employment generation, using the Parish as the economic unit for planning, budgeting and service delivery. Therefore, the 10,594 Parishes in the Country, will be the growth and service delivery units in the Parish Development Model.
Government has committed UShs. 1,059 Billion this financial year, for its rollout countrywide. So far, Parishes which established SACCOs have received UShs. 50 million each, benefiting 906 SACCOs and more than 21,082 individual beneficiaries. Government will deepen the implementation of the Parish Development Model (PDM), beyond the Financial Inclusion pillar by maintaining disbursement of UShs. 100 million per parish next financial year and in the subsequent years.
The program has, however, been riddled with scores of fraud reports, rising skepticism over it’s potential to attain the intended goal.
This forced the President to carry out a state wide tour to assess the progress of the programme, begging from Acholi sub region in Northern Uganda before proceeding to Greater Masaka recently.
What, however, was discovered by the president is not exactly what he had wished him, promoting him to butterfly roar at those mismanaging the program to be alert for prison awaits them.
He named cases where money meant for the poor has been given to the rich, some elites coniving with program officials to form circles and get all the money at the expense of the poor, and politicians diverting the money released for own use are some of the irregularities the president said were hindering the progress of the program.
“When I visited some parts of the country, I was told that some of the Parish Development Model money, has been given to people who are not eligible. This includes politicians and public servants. I was also informed about the delays in accessing the funds released by the Ministry of Finance to the target beneficiaries. In some cases, a few elite people come together and form SACCOS and take all the funds released for the entire Parish. The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested a number of culprits in the Acholi Zone where I started my up-country inspection trips. And I’m coming to all the other zones so thieves be on alert. I have also been to Masaka and I found there some prison candidates.” he said.
He explained that PDM is a successor programme to the NAADS and OWC programmes. Especially the OWC programme, which he said that starting in 2013, succeeded in bringing down the households outside the money economy from 68% to the present figure of 39%.
The OWC, Museveni said, “did not only convert 29% of the households from abakolera ekidda kyonka (tic me ic keken) to the money economy, but, as an example, increased the production of coffee from 2million 60kg bags, to now 9million and would have increased to 12 million bags, if it was not for the change to the new model of PDM, which people are still acclimatizing to.
The change was, however, necessary so that the program is beneficiaries-owned and we eliminate the grumblings of begabila bbokka (the government officials only serve themselves- or favour themselves)” he said.
PDM is saying; “Do it yourself; here is a grant from the government to your parish SACCO of UShs.100million, per year. Besides, the parish is near your home. Hence, no more excuses”.
This is the strategy of PDM, the money is there, cheap and the Parish is near. Therefore no more excuses by the people who want to remain in poverty.
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