Soroti City receives Shs 550mln PDM funds for second disbursement
SOROTI, April 18, 2024 – The Soroti City Commercial Officer, George William Tukei says the city has received Shs 550 million for the Parish Development Model [PDM] beneficiaries who missed the money in the first phase of disbursement.
In an interview with this reporter, Tukei said out of the 24 wards in the city, only 11 wards will receive the money that will be disbursed next week.
“Only those who have accounts in Post Bank will be the first to receive the money,” he says.
According to Tukei, the 11 wards expected to receive the money are Moruapesur, Kengere, Aloet, Acetgwen, Opuyo, Kichinjaja, Akisim, Pioneer, Otatai, Opiyai and Central ward.
Tukei also said central government sent Shs 250,000 for PDM SACCO executive committees in Soroti City to cater for their operations. “So we do not wish to hear about SACCO leaders demanding for money from the programme’s beneficiaries,” Tukei said.
He further said that they are going by the government guidelines to make sure that all SACCOs enroll on Wendi, the digital application tool used in e-payment of PDM funds. “By next week the other 14 wards would have been enrolled and also received their money,” he said.
According to Tukei, approving PDM beneficiaries should be dependent on the community but not the executive committees to reduce cases of bribery.
“The beneficiaries will be called before the community gathering who will then decide who takes the money because they know who is poor,” Tukei said.
Finally, Tukei cautioned beneficiaries to safeguard their phones and passwords because the money will be sent to their phones directly.
Agnes Asamo, a resident of Majengo also said that with community involvement will promote transparency and reduce cases of corruption.
“At least we the community know which people are in dire need, I am so happy that transparency will prevail,” she said.
Background
The PDM, a government programme, was launched in February 2022, to move 3.5 million households from the subsistence economy to the money economy.
Each financial year, central government sends Shs 100mln to each parish in Uganda, from which each beneficiary gets Shs 1mln to fund chosen enterprises such as piggery, poultry keeping, crop farming, dairy farming, and bee keeping among others. This is done under PDM’s Financial Inclusion Pillar.
The Financial Inclusion Pillar is part of the broader efforts by government to fulfill national commitment to the realization of Uganda’s Vision 2040.
Key frameworks to which this Pillar is aligned to include: The National Microfinance Policy, The National Cooperative Policy, The National Financial Inclusion Strategy [NFIS 20172022], The Strategy for Financial Literacy, and The Private Sector Development Strategy [2017] among others.
The PDM Financial Inclusion Pillar is seen as a holistic strategy by government to promote access to and usage of appropriate and timely financial products and services using the parish as the epicentre for planning, budgeting and service delivery by both State and Non-State Actors.
The intent of the PDM Financial Inclusion Pillar, according to government, is to achieve a systematic national socio-economic transformation where incomes of subsistence households operating the agricultural sector will be improved through the provision of appropriate financial services to carefully selected enterprises.
However, reports indicate that the PDM is not running smoothly as anticipated at its inception, due to corruption, bureaucracy, and misuse of funds by the beneficiaries.
https://thecooperator.news/masindi-district-prioritises-three-enterprises-under-pdm/
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