UPC | PDM | GOVERNMENT | HOUSEHOLD | INCOME

The goal of the Parish Development Model (PDM) program is to increase household incomes and improve the quality of life of Ugandans, with a specific focus on the total transformation of subsistence households (both on and off the farm, in rural and urban settings) into money economies, as well as the eradication of poverty in Uganda.

However, according to the Uganda People’s Congress (UPC), this is likely not to happen, as it says the funds meant to provide relief to the beneficiaries are getting sucked into a wider range of socio-economic challenges coupled with corruption, bribery scandals, and diversion of funds.

According to party spokesperson Sharon Oyat, the government has not placed a high priority on informing recipients that the money they have received is not a grant, but rather a loan that must be repaid.

Oyat added that most of the beneficiaries have mismanaged the funds, thinking that it was just an appreciation the government gave them. She attributed all the problems to the government's failure to teach the public about the actual focus of the program.

"The public would rather see PDM funds as a grant from the Government to attend to their daily needs. This is another critical area where the Government does not pay much attention," she said.

Oyat was addressing the media at the weekly press briefing that was held at the party’s headquarters in Kampala, on Tuesday, March 20, 2023.

She said when PDM was rolled out, people’s hopes were raised, thinking it would be a magic bullet to alleviate their poverty or uplift their economic status.

"It was very appealing, with hopes that it will yield better fruits than the previous initiatives," she said.

She recommended that before it is too late, there is a need to get back to the drawing board to understand how the program can fully function and live up to its goal of changing people’s economic status. 

Oyat thought that this could be done by reviewing the methods the Government had improvised to manage the program, starting with auditing beneficiaries and their SACCOS and even those in charge of it.

She added that taking the shape of a pilot scheme in some selected urban and rural areas would enable close supervision and monitoring.  

The president’s voice on PDM

President Yoweri Museveni, while speaking to the 11th Parliament at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala last week, said the selfish interests of the implementers of the scheme are the biggest loophole that is creating a huge setback.

President Museveni added that several mischiefs in the implementation of PDM included paying for SACCO membership, officers calling for illegal meetings, and inadequacy in the borrowed funds.

"Government officials were the ones selecting the beneficiaries. A meeting was called in the sub-county instead of the parish, and each was told to bring shillings 30,000. These are not in direct elections, the SACCO is for everyone," he said.

The president termed the PDM and Emyooga funds as toxic and warned against the diversion of these funds, as this would not be dealt with lightly. He pledged to contribute an oversight role towards monitoring the project by visiting two places per month to ascertain the progress of the PDM.