Minister disbands all PDM Saccos in Masaka City

The State Minister for Economic Monitoring, Ms Beatrice Akello has ordered fresh registration of Parish Development Model (PDM) Saccos in Masaka City, arguing that those in government records don’t qualify to benefit from the programme.

According to Ms Akello, her investigations had revealed that in all the 25 Saccos formed in the 25 parishes that make up Masaka City, the beneficiaries don’t fall in the category of people being targeted under PDM.
“The PDM guidelines are clear. They aim at lifting 39 percent of households from a subsistence economy to commercial production, but the few sampled Saccos in the city don’t have anyone in the category of the targeted people,” she said in one of the meetings with Masaka City leadership on Thursday during her ongoing inspection of various government projects in Masaka Sub Region.

According to the minister, the PDM programme in Masaka City is a total mess and the implementers “are doing their own things without following the available guidelines and frustrating all intentions of the programme”.
 “Our investigations revealed that the city authorities were under pressure while forming the Saccos and all Sacco leaders we visited attested to that,” she said.  

Mr Vincent Tumusiime, the head of the Directorate of Economic Affairs and Research in State House also noted that the investigators are combing all PDM Saccos in the city to establish their existence and eligibility. He said when all the inspection is done, the city authorities should form new Saccos with the right beneficiaries.
“There is evidence of negligence and financial loss because the government committed funds on training and forming Saccos which have turned out to be comprised of wrong beneficiaries,” he said.
 He said they have given the city authorities a one- month ultimatum to rectify all mistakes in implementation of PDM progamme and bear costs in forming new Saccos.

Mr Tumusiime wondered how the city authorities formed Saccos without guiding data which is said to have been confiscated by data collectors who were not paid their allowances.
  Ms Shilah Akello, Masaka City’s focal person of PDM said they formed the groups under pressure in order to beat the deadline from the PDM National Secretariat.
 “We were working under pressure to beat the deadline and that’s how some of the Saccos ended up with wrong beneficiaries,” she said while responding to queries from the minister’s monitoring committee.

Mr Godfrey Bamanyisa, the Masaka City clerk said  most of the mistakes made in implementing PDM programme  are caused by untimely releases of funds and delayed guidelines which came at the eve of last financial year and the officers were trying to utilise funds to avoid them being sent back to the consolidated fund.
Masaka City received Shs177.6 million and disbursed the funds to 17 Saccos. At least eight Saccos have not yet received any monies to date .