Bribery, extortion mar Parish Model in Lango

In Amolatar, for instance, the district chairperson, Mr Geoffrey Ocen, said the most irregularities are at the level of the PDM Saccos.

He said even after the rightful beneficiaries were identified, the Sacco leaders started giving PDM cash to people who were able to give bribes.

“If you can afford to give Shs20,000 or Shs50,000 to the Sacco leaders, you get PDM money even when you are not among the rightful beneficiaries,” Mr Ocen said, adding that the situation was more pronounced in Aputi Sub-county.

He said: “Money came, they identified people and people that formed groups didn’t benefit. If you have the money to bribe the Sacco leaders, you’re identified immediately within a short period of time to get PDM money.”

Mr Ocen further said community development officers (CDOs) had agents spread within the parishes. And CDOs would allegedly assign the agents to look for people with National IDs with interest in the PDM money.

“So, the national IDs would be used to process the money but that national ID would also be used as security,” he said, explaining that when you give your national ID to those agents, they initiate you through the process.

“But when you get the money, you get back to the community development officer. If you get Shs1 million, you pay Shs300,000 then you go back to the agent and get back your national ID,” the chairperson added.

There are 85 parishes in the entire Amolatar District, with the money disbursed to almost half of the parishes.

Mr Francis Odoki Okello Rwotlonyo, the resident district commissioner, said some parish chiefs have taken advantage of the beneficiaries’ ignorance to extort money from them.

Mr Moses Alele, the chairperson of Alemere PDM Sacco, said of their 312 members, 111 households have so far accessed the funds, with five of them getting Shs500,000 each. The rest received Shs1 million each.

“The total money that was on the Sacco account was Shs108.58m. But the money that was given to the group was Shs107m yet the account attracted interest. So, we got an interest of about Shs1 million.”        

In Kole District, a team from the Directorate of Socio-Economic Monitoring and Research in the Office of the President discovered that irregularities have affected the implementation of PDM.

The team headed by State Minister for Economic Monitoring Beatrice Akello Akori camped in Lango for five days and toured a number of projects in Alebtong, Otuke, Amolatar, Kole and Oyam districts.

While meeting PDM Sacco members in Kole, the beneficiaries accused their leaders of swindling PDM cash.

Mr Michael Opio, the chairperson of Ogwang-Acuma Ward PDM Sacco in Aboke Town Council, said their group received Shs106 million. So far, Shs52.3 million had been released to the intended beneficiary households.

However, he said the money given to the beneficiaries was drastically reduced. “You come with an application for Shs1 million, you’re told you’re too poor to afford this money and they reduce it to Shs300,000, or Shs500,000,” he said.

Mr Opio said when Sacco leaders raised a complaint with the district leadership, they were arrested and held at Kole Central Police Station for two days. The suspects were later released without any charges being preferred against them.

Kole North MP Samuel Opio Acuti said the irregularities in the implementation of the programme cut across different PDM Saccos in the area.

Challenges
“Somebody is supposed to receive Shs1.6 million. When you ask the beneficiaries, they have only received Shs800,000,” the legislator said.

“It is only when I raised the issue that the bank reversed the statement but even the statement they brought as a reversed statement was forged! The matter was presented to the committee of Parliament, they invited the bank. Very interesting, when the bank also went through, they again reversed another transaction, which had taken two months before,” he said. 

The legislator also alleged connivance between the banks and leaders to swindle PDM cash.

“The second issue that I found on the bank statement, the irregularities, you find for a full month Shs57 million has been withdrawn from a [PDM] Sacco account without authorisation. That is on the bank statement,” Dr Opio said.

Mr Esau Ekachelan, the chief administrative officer, said the district has so far received Shs5.6 billion for PDM.

“Of the Shs5.6 billion, about Shs4 billion plus has been disbursed and by close of business today [yesterday], we might go beyond 95 percent because all the files are ready and the payments are going on,” he said.

Ms Judith Ayek, the Kole Woman Member of Parliament, also the chairperson of Lango Parliamentary Group, decried corruption.

“Corrupt society! Don’t even look at one person, the chairpersons of Saccos are very corrupt, even the beneficiaries go to buy the team of Saccos. So, what do we do?” she wondered.

“Please let the government make a progress evaluation by way of assessing the beneficiaries, if this money is really working,” Ms Alyek added.

The CAO, however, boasted that Kole is free of corruption, adding that nobody has misappropriated PDM cash.

“My boss, the permanent secretary, would have summoned me but he has not done it. That means things are moving on smoothly. There are small challenges which we are addressing. For us, we don’t have problems,” he said.

In Alebtong, almost 92 percent of the money received under PDM has been disbursed to the beneficiary households.

However, the Directorate of Socio Economic Monitoring and Research in the Office of the President discovered that some beneficiaries in Abako Sub-county used the PDM money to roof their houses instead of spending it on the enterprises they requested the money for.

Mr David Kennedy Odongo, the Alebtong District chairperson, said in some few selected parishes, money has not yet been released to the beneficiaries due to technical problems in the use of computers and Smartphones.

“But so far, we have not found any acts of fraud in the implementation of PDM. If they are there, they could be with the community but money is released to the beneficiaries and we are closely monitoring and guiding on how they should use the money,” Mr Odongo,  said.

Status in Oyam
Oyam District has received Shs7.9b for PDM. So far, Shs3 billion has been released to 3,724 beneficiaries, according to the chairperson, Mr Benson Walter Dila.

“All the 74 parishes in the two political constituencies of Oyam North and Oyam South have received the money, with 31 parishes receiving Shs117 million each while the rest each received Shs100 million,” he said.

“The total money issued out is Shs3 billion. This is where I have issues. The people who got this money, some of them got what was not in the guidelines. The guideline is Shs1 million per beneficiary but most people were given less money.”

Mr Ham Emukule, Oyam District commercial officer, said those who got less than Shs1 million told the PDM implementing agents that since PDM is a loan, refunding Shs1 million could be a challenge to them.