PDM: Minister Engola calls for bylaw on alcohol consumption
OYAM-State minister for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations, Charles Okello Engola has called upon local leaders in the Lango Sub-region to ban the sale of alcohol during working hours so that people concentrate on the income-generating activities outlined in the Parish Development Model [PDM].
Addressing councilors and technical personnel days ago, Engola urged the local leaders in the sub region to enact a bylaw stopping people from drinking alcohol during working hours, adding that this will contribute to the success of the PDM now being popularised countrywide.
Under the PDM, for five years, government plans to invest about Shs 100 million annually in each parish, beginning with the 2022/23 financial year to fight household poverty, especially in 39 percent of Ugandan households earmarked to be moved from the subsistence to the money economy.
“People are over drinking and it has become so difficult to implement government programmes,” Engola said during PDM community mobilisation and mindset change meeting held at Oyam district local government headquarters.
“Councilors and technical team are busy sensitizing people on Parish Development Model, however there are challenges like overdrinking and land fragmentation which needs urgent attention,” he said.
Engola who preached the gospel of PDM in Otuke, Kwania district and later Oyam district said the challenges of heavy consumption of alcohol and land fragmentation are not only in Oyam but also in the other districts of Lango Sub-region.
Lango sub region has nine districts; Amolalar, Dokolo, Lira, Kole, Apac, Alebtong, Kwania, Oyam, Otuke, and Lira City.
Engola said the bylaw should be passed immediately to allot more time for PDM and limit time for drinking and redundancy during the daytime.
“We want the bylaw to be passed quickly in Oyam and we shall push it to all local government in the Lango sub-region,” he said.
He criticized, some of the local leaders and the technical team who still have a negative perception of the PDM.
He urged the leaders and the civil servants to change their mindsets before they move down to the villages to sensitise people on the PDM mobilization.
The Oyam district Woman MP Santa Olum Ogwang applauded the government for coming up with the programme, saying it will rescue the communities from abject poverty.
She said other government programmes such as Etandekwa, Bagagawala, and Youth Livelihood programmes failed because they were not channeled directly to the community.
Under the PDM, parish SACCOs will be in charge of lending out the money to organised groups and individuals, who must pay back the money, to be used as a revolving fund.
https://thecooperator.news/pdm-mps-rally-vulnerable-persons-to-form-businesses/
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