Govt wires more Shs6b to active Emyooga Saccos in Greater Masaka

The government through the Ministry of Finance has disbursed another Shs5.9 billion to various Emyooga Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (Saccos) in the nine districts of Greater Masaka.
According to Mr Haruna Kasolo, the state minister for micro-finance and small enterprises, only 300 Saccos that have presented proper books of accounts have been considered for additional funding with each expected to get  Shs20 million starting this week.
“It was a presidential directive to give more money to Emyooga Saccos, but we are considering only those with  active members who are  saving and doing business,” he said while launching the second disbursement of the Emyooga funds in Masaka City over the weekend.
Through this initiative, Mr Kasolo said the government is committed to convert 68 per cent of the country’s homesteads who are currently in subsistence to market-oriented production. 
“With government efforts to financially empower citizens through programmes like Emyooga and Parish Development Model (PDM) it is going to be one’s choice to remain poor in Uganda,” he said.
Launched in July 2020, the Emyooga programme where the government has so far injected a whooping Shs260b, targets low income Ugandans in the informal sector to enable them boost their household incomes and grow their small businesses.
However, in some districts the targeted beneficiaries like boda- boda riders, carpenters, tailors, welders, fishermen, taxi drivers, vendors and salon operators, among others, have received the money and used it for gratification while others have received half of the money after the implementers of the programme at  the districts  swindled a portion of it.
The newly appointed Masaka City Resident Commissioner, Mr Hudu Hussein, said the honeymoon had ended and urged  Emyooga defaulters to pay back the money or get arrested.
“Those who have not returned Emyooga money to enable other benefits, should do so quickly before we come for you. I am not here on honeymoon, but serious business,” he said
Through Micro-Finance Support Centre (MSF), the lead agency implementing Emyooga, the government first wired Shs30m directly to the Sacco account which member associations borrowed at 8-12 per cent interest for various enterprises.
To date, a total of 6,813 Emyooga Saccos are fully registered and Shs231b has been disbursed.  According to the centre, Shs554.3b had been mobilised in savings by December 2021, to 594,475 beneficiaries.
Masaka greater region which has 22 constituencies and 2,090 Saccos at parish level received a total of Shs21b as seed capital during the first reimbursement two years ago. Each Sacco was funded with Shs30 million, as a revolving fund amongst the members. However, programme supervisors in various districts are still struggling to recover the first monies which were lent out to the different beneficiaries in the initial stages of its implementation.