8,600 parishes cleared to invest PDM money
The minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, addresses the media at Uganda Media Centre in Kampala Yesterday. PHOTO | PETER SSERUGO
What you need to know:
- The Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, said of the registered 10,594 parishes, only 8,600 parishes qualified for the final stage of accessing the PDM funds.
The government has cleared at least 8,600 parishes to disburse the Parish Development Model (PDM) money from the Sacco accounts to the individual beneficiaries for investment.
The findings are contained in the PDM implementation status report adopted by Cabinet on Monday.
The Minister of Local Government, Mr Raphael Magyezi, said of the registered 10,594 parishes, only 8,600 parishes qualified for the final stage of accessing the PDM funds.
He added that efforts are underway to ensure that all Saccos start to disburse the funds to the final beneficiaries by February 2023.
“On December 14, 2022, the vice president launched the disbursement of funds from Sacco accounts to the final beneficiaries. However, to date, only 8,600 parishes have been approved for the final stage of the PDM,” Mr Magyezi told the media in Kampala yesterday.
“We expect all the beneficiaries to have access to the funds by the beginning of February and ministers will be doing investigations to find out whether all registered beneficiaries got access to the money,” he added.
For any Sacco to qualify for the final stage of investing the PDM fund, it must be approved by the Parish Development Committee (PDC) and the Parish Chiefs after assessing that the beneficiaries are ready to use the funds to maximise their household incomes.
Funding
On Wednesday, the government released Shs264b for PDM and the Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, requested that the Saccos that have not utilised the funds under the initial disbursements should not be given more money until they meet all the requirements.
The PDM implementation status report also indicates that the government has achieved almost all the requirements for the implementation such as; electing of all parish chiefs, establishing of the Seven PDM pillars and developing of the working framework for the model.
Mr Magyezi said the report will soon be presented on the floor of Parliament to update legislators about the operations.
“PDM implementation is moving on well as planned, the report about its activities was adopted by Cabinet and I will be presenting to Parliament when that time comes,” he said, adding: “However, I continue to urge the leaders at all levels to monitor the PDM operations so that it can serve to its main objective.”
ABOUT PDM
The PDM is a government poverty alleviation programme that targets to uplift more than 16 million Ugandans into the money economy through offering a startup loan of Shs1m to each household to invest into agriculture activities such poultry, piggery, and fish farming.
