APAC: Carelessness in data collection delays disbursement of PDM funds
APAC – Laxity in the collection of baseline data for the Parish Development Model [PDM] has delayed the disbursement of funds to targeted beneficiaries in Apac District, theCooperator can say.
In June last year, government through the Uganda Bureau of Statistics [UBOS] and Ministry of ICT & National Guidance launched the countrywide baseline data collection under Pillar 6 of the PDM, to develop, update, and deploy the Parish Development Management Information System [PDMIS] in order to generate parish registers of households and parish dashboards to enable real-time access to information.
PDM is a five-year government poverty alleviation programme whose goals focus on transforming 3.5 million households still in the subsistence economy into the money economy.
Apac district received Shs. 1.7bln for 37 PDM SACCOs registered in the district under the programme where government hopes to allocate over Shs 1 trillion each financial year to enable groups and individuals in parishes to engage in income generating activities.
However, a report has emerged indicating that information about households in some parishes in the district were not compiled as required by UBOS, hence delaying the disbursement of the funds to the PDM beneficiaries.
Data collectors who spoke to this reporter revealed that the money meant to pay them was swindled and hence they did not collect the data for PDMIS.
Paka Nelson, Chegere parish chief said they were incapacitated to collect data because transport facilitation was not sent in time. “In our area data was not collected properly, the reason being that we were not sent in time Shs 15, 000 transport refund after attending a training, and Shs 10,000 for data.
Another parish chief who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “I was among those one who were collecting data. we collected data for only 12 households out of 200 households, so we left almost 180 households just because the transport refund was not paid.”
When contacted to comment on the matter, Geoffrey Okaka, the Apac chief administrative officer said all was being done to ensure data on all targeted households is collected for effective implementation of the PDM in the district.
“The data collection was intended to enhance generation of reliable statistics required for the effective implementation and monitoring of the PDM. Yes, the exercise has not been successful because the data collectors were not well oriented but going forward, all is being done to ensure that data is collected, submitted so that disbursement of the funds to the beneficiaries starts,” said in a telephone interview last week.
Godfrey Nabongo, the national coordinator of PDM data collection at the UBOS said, “Data collections started on the June 6, 2022, with training of data collectors at the district level. I am surprised that Apac has not yet collected data up to now. I have given them an ultimatum of one week to send clear data before money can be distributed.”
Apac resident district commissioner, George Abudul said he is yet to meet all the parish chiefs over the matter.
The PDM is being executed in 10,594 parishes where each parish was to receive Shs 100 million for the beneficiaries to engage in commercial production, targeting agricultural enterprises such as dairy, coffee, piggery, poultry, beekeeping, fish farming, maize, banana, and beans among others.
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