ALBETONG – Alebtong district has failed to recover Shs 840m which the government released to support various youth projects in the district.
The money was disbursed to supplement Youth Livelihood Program (YLP) and Youth Venture Fund (YVF) in three financial years (2014/2015, 2017/2018, 2019/2020) according to the district LC5 boss, David Kennedy Odongo.
He said the district received Shs1.4b in these financial years to support the projects but since then they have recovered only Shs153m.
“The financial support was given to youth groups and they were supposed to get, use it and repay but a number have failed to repay,” Odongo said.
His comment followed the recent concern raised by the District Youth Chairperson, Robert Ocen during the youth day celebration. He further said, government was at the stage of scrapping the Youth Livelihood Program and redirecting the funds to the Parish Development Program.
“The youth are leaving in fear that Youth Livelihood Program which was the only program to facilitate youth activities will soon be no more,” Ocen was quoted as saying during the celebration held at Alebtong primary school.
Odongo said with the figure of Shs 840 unrecovered, it means a lot of money is still with the youth though they are crying for government support, marginalization and scrapping of youth development projects.
He also said, the government has already invested a lot on youth and their budget for this financial year 2021/2022 to the tune of Shs29b and allocated Shs14b for education.
“When you talk about education, it means you are talking about the youth who are going to be future leaders,” he added.
“The government injected Shs 2b for the construction of Abia Seeds Secondary School, Shs1.8b for Awei and Shs800m for Angetta Secondary School,” said Odongo.
He advised young people to embrace government programs such as Emyooga and Parish Development Program which are due to be kicked off.
“Work on your mindset and avoid the blame game if you want to progress,” he added.
He said under the Emyooga program, the district has received Shs 1.1b and what has already been disbursed is Shs 370m.
Ocen requested the government to extend the repayment period of Emyooga to one year and relax other conditions required to access the money.
https://thecooperator.news/hoima-city-women-and-pwds-get-shs-151million/
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