Rubaga deputy RCC halts PDM operations

The deputy Resident City Commissioner (RCC) of Rubaga Division, Mr Anderson Burora, has halted the Parish Development Model (PDM) operations in the area, citing irregularities.

Mr Burora said some Kampala Capital City Authority officials have included unqualified people to benefit from the government anti-poverty project.

“We have seen lists bearing names of people who are well-off, who own Benz cars, salary earners and those who own big shops being fronted for PDM.The project was intended for the 39 percent population that lives hand-to-mouth but not those who surpass that level,” he said.

Mr Burora said he has received several complaints from different stakeholders.

While addressing journalists at his office in Rubaga yesterday, the RCC said the programme would be halted to ensure it benefits the right people.

“We have taken a stand as stakeholders that we halt the continuous PDM arrangements as they stand now because they don’t reflect what the government intended to address so that we can review and come up with a clear description of what the government wanted,” Mr Burora said.

He added: “We have a number of officers that we are going to hand over to the relevant bodies for investigations to understand their motives, where they get instructions to divert the attention and direction of government in to other things because it has clearly been shown that they are not up to the expectations of government”.

Mr Burora also put on hold the operations of National Agriculture Advisory Services (Naads) and Community Driven Development (CDD) in the division, citing ghost beneficiaries.

“If you want to trace the groups which benefited from these programmes, they are nowhere. A lot of confusion is involved in these programmes,”Mr Burora said.

He warned the KCCA officials to prioritise people’s interests other than fabricating reports to suit audit requirements.

The Minister for Kampala Capital City and Metropolitan Affairs, Ms Minsa Kabanda, backed the deputy RCC’s move, saying they had an engagement and agreed to rectify any loopholes since he is the direct supervisor of all government projects.

“PDM is our baby, it’s a new project, which we should support, so if there are some loopholes, he is free to intervene in whatever way he wants, and we are going to support him,” she said.

Background

The Parish Development Model (PDM) is a government programme, aimed at lifting 17.5 million Ugandans in 3.5 million households out of poverty through the transformation of the subsistence households into the money economy.

It is the government’s latest drive towards poverty alleviation where nearly 10,600 parishes are to get seed money of Shs100 million per parish.