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The First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Museveni, is to engage residents of Nyenga in Buikwe district to probe reports that the communities have failed to access Parish Development Model (PDM) funds.

This was revealed by President Yoweri Museveni, while addressing mammoth crowds who gathered at Waikitaka Primary School for the 38^th NRM Liberation Day celebrations in Jinja.

“Earlier this morning as we drove to this event we made several stopovers to interact with wananchi who waited for us along the roads. While interacting with some groups, the First Lady asked if they were getting the PDM money, they said they have never received the money. They reported that they just heard about it. She is going back to that particular place in Nyenga to meet those people and the Member of Parliament to find out what happened to that money,” Museveni said on Friday.

Nyenga is one of the sub counties near Jinja town.

According to Museveni, the groups raised several issues including:  drug thefts, expulsion of children from school, failure to access PDM funds.

The Parish Development Model was initiated by the government to ensure that people access money to improve household incomes for a balanced and equitable socio-economic transformation.

PDM today

According to the Ministry of Finance Planning and Economic Development a Sh1.0585 trillion (about 99%) of the total budget of sh1.059 trillion) has already been disbursed to Savings and Credit Cooperatives under the Parish Development Modal.

While briefing Parliament recently, Minister of state for General Duties in the Finance Ministry, Henry Musasizi said that money was posted directly to bank accounts of SACCOS in all the 176 Local governments and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).

Musasizi added that in the current fiscal year, the ministry plans to release PDM funds in Quarter 3 & Quarter 4 before the planting season.