KAMPALA – Parishes that were able to establish SACCOs have each received Shs 50 million in the current financial year, which is half of the Shs 100 million pledged by the government, President Yoweri Museveni said yesterday during State of the National Address [SONA].
“The 10,594 parishes in the country, will be the growth and service delivery units in the Parish Development Model. Government has committed Shs 1,059 billion this financial year, for its rollout countrywide. So far, Parishes which established SACCOs have received Shs 50 million each, benefiting 906 SACCOs and more than 21,082 individual beneficiaries,” he said.
“Government will deepen the implementation of the Parish Development Model [PDM], beyond the Financial Inclusion pillar by maintaining disbursement of Shs 100 million per parish next financial year and in the subsequent years,” Museveni said yesterday at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala while addressing MPs, diplomats, and other invited guests on different topics concerning Uganda’s economy.
The President said under the PDM, his government is committed to creating wealth and jobs by moving households from the non-money economy to the money economy. “To achieve this goal, Government launched the Parish Development Model to accelerate socio-economic transformation,” he said.
He added: “Using this approach, 39 percent households which are currently in the non-money economy [the majority of whom are in subsistence agriculture], will move into the money economy.”
He said the PDM which he launched in February 2022, will increase incomes, improve quality of life and eradicate poverty at household level through modernisation of agriculture, industrialisation, improved services delivery, and use of modern communication technologies.
He added: “Through the Parish Development Model, 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.”
Museveni also said he will continue to fight corruption in the PDM. “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,” he said.
He said The State House Anti-Corruption Unit has arrested a number of culprits in the Acholi Zone where he started up-country inspection trips. “I am coming to all the other zones so thieves be on alert. I have also been to Masaka and I found there some prison candidates. The PDM programme is a successor programme to the National Agricultural Advisory Services [NAADS] and Operation Wealth Creation [OWC] programmes,” he said.
He said OWC programme succeeded in bringing down the households outside the money economy from 68 percent to the present figure of 39 percent. “The OWC did not only convert 29 percent of the households.
He said the OWC increased the production of coffee from 2 million 60kg bags, to now 9 million and this would have increased to 12 million bags, if it was not for the shift to PDM, which people are still acclimatising to.
Museveni said with the PDM, there shouldn’t be more excuses by the people who want to remain in poverty, saying the revolving fund is cheap for them to borrow from and engage in income-generating activities.
EMYOOGA Programme
President Museveni said the Emyooga Programme he launched three years ago has been successful in mobilising the youth and women in the informal sector into productive self-employment.
He said the programme has helped to increase the skills of the beneficiaries, acquiring equipment, and accessing affordable capital.
He added: As of end December 2022, seed capital amounting to Shs 258.24 billion had been disbursed, benefitting 6714 Emyooga SACCOs and covering 1,858,762 individual beneficiaries.
https://thecooperator.news/use-pdm-money-to-embrace-commercial-production-mp-alyek/
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