HOIMA – Dr. Emmanuel Aliba Kiiza, the Board Chairman of Microfinance Support Centre (MSC) has revealed that they intend to invest in the oil and gas sector.
While addressing Community Development Officers (CDOs) and Commercials Officers (COs) at a regional evaluation meeting on the Progress of Emyooga program in Bunyoro at Hotel Kontik Hoima town, Dr. Aliba explained that a strategy is being formulated to get a way of investing millions of shillings in the oil sector.
He noted that this strategy once completed is going to position MSC in the sector to ensure that they help the active poor to tap into the oil and gas sector. His comment comes after the government signed a Final Investment Decision (FID) with oil companies to kick start oil and gas development to ensure that the country can have its first drop of oil by 2025.
According to Dr. Aliba, under this strategy MSC desires to prepare the local person, especially from the Albertin Graben to be able to engage in commercial production of food, poultry, and piggery among others.
He noted that this sector has a lot of opportunities, but people are not prepared and this is the right time to embark on the campaign of preparing them.
“We want to empower the active poor to be able to produce and have something to sell in the market every day and this will help them to move out of poverty,” he said.
On Emyooga, Dr. Aliba tasked the Community Development Officers and Commercials Officers in the region to rectify some irregularities in some Emyooga SACCOs.
He noted that many SACCOs were registered without following the guidelines and as a result, many are made of relatives and friends.
He noted that such irregularities must be rectified immediately if the Emyooga program is to serve its intended purpose and warned to arrest duty bearers if such anomalies continue to exist.
Helen Petralina Masika, the deputy Executive Director MSC said, the Emyooga program is progressing as expected despite some few challenges.
According to the implementation of the program which started in August 2019, approximately 6757 SACCOs have so far registered across the country and Shs 231 billions disbursed to 6,606 SACCOs.She added that 134,816 Emyooga associations are active and they have so far saved Shs55.3 billion.
According to the records 594,475 members have benefited from the money by borrowing and 2.696m jobs have been created.
“You can imagine the government invested Shs 30 million per Emyooga SACCO but all the Emyooga SACCOs all together have saved a total of Shs55.3. You can imagine that in this county we don’t have poor people; it means that when someone is empowered with resources, they are able to participant in economic activities and again they are able to raise resources from which they can save for the future. Actually, this program is one of best programs that we have had in this county and it’s performing very well; there are challenges, but the challenges are not many like for other programs. This is a program that I am proud of, this a program that I can stand and defend and would wish to thank the president for this initiative.”
Masika also identified Masindi and Kakumiro districts as the best performing districts in the Emyooga program implementation out of the 10 districts that make up Hoima zone. The two districts performed well in terms of saving, buying share capital, and paying membership. She awarded the Community Development Officers and Commercials Officers of the two districts with Shs 500, 000 each.
The MSC boss also promised to support the SACCOs in Buliisa, Hoima and Kagadi which were interrupted by floods at the shores of Lake Albert with seed capital of at least Shs 20 million each at a small interest rate of 8%.
It’s alleged that more than 600 Emyooga associations in four districts of Buliisa, Hoima, Kikuube and Kagadi closed after being affected by floods on Lake Albert. Floods on the Lake started in March 2020 and left many people displaced in the said districts.
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