Masaka City: Over Shs 1.8bln PDM cash lying idle on bank accounts
MASAKA, October 10, 2023 – Authorities in Masaka City have failed to disburse over Shs 1.8 billion PDM funds to the intended beneficiaries in 25 wards in the city due to a lack of laptops for data entry.
Masaka City PDM focal person, Sheila Akello revealed this while appearing before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee that sat at Masaka Rehabilitation Centre days ago.
Akello told the committee that the government has failed to give parish chiefs the IT gadgets for verifying the eligible persons to benefit from the PDM funds.
She revealed that Shs 42mln that had been earmarked for the purchase of IT gadgets was instead used as initial capitalisation PDM SACCOs.
She added that some parish chiefs are borrowing laptops, but they also do not have data to upload the information for individual beneficiaries.
“Since the government ordered cities and districts to use the e-payment system to disburse money to the PDM beneficiaries, the parish chiefs in Masaka city with no laptops are finding it hard to verify the genuine beneficiaries of the programme,” she said.
Akello explained that Masaka city earmarked Shs 2.6 billion PDM funds from the government but only 798 has been disbursed to 940 beneficiary households with 272 enterprise groups in the 25 wards.
The chairperson of Kitengeesa PDM SACCO , Shirat Nakasujja said at least 104 households opened bank accounts in Masaka Post bank and formed enterprise groups but have never accessed the money.
Masaka City clerk, Vincent Okurut said the PDM money was deposited on SACCO accounts opened in banks such as DFCU Bank, Pride Microfinance Limited, Bank of Africa and Post Bank.
One of the members of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee, Linda Agnes Auma who is also Lira district woman MP, said they will write a report on challenges facing the implementation of the PDM in Masaka City. ‘’ Lack of laptops and facilitation to reach the parishes may fail this PDM programme if it is not dealt with soon,’’ she said.
Meanwhile, the PDM coordinator in Masaka region, Patrick Mutoni said there is still a big challenge of IT gadgets but added that some districts like Bukedea have successfully given out money manually to all the beneficiaries.
Launched in February 2022, the PDM aims to move 3.5mln households still stuck in the subsistence economy to the money economy.
Each of the 10,594 parishes in Uganda beginning with the financial year 2022/ 2023 will receive Shs 100mln per year for the beneficiaries to to engage in commercial agriculture.
https://thecooperator.news/how-war-loss-compensation-is-benefiting-masaka-cooperative-union-farmers/
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