SACCO chairperson jailed over PDM funds
Court heard that during his tenure as Chairperson, Ayebare fraudulently obtained money from hundreds of peasants by falsely claiming that payment of money to him was a requirement for them to benefit from the PDM program
SACCO chairperson jailed over PDM funds
By Michael Odeng
Journalists @New Vision
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The former Rwakakoore Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies chairperson has been sentenced to three years in prison or a fine of sh1m for extorting money from Parish Development Model (PDM) beneficiaries in Isingiro district.
The Chief Magistrate’s Court in Isingiro also ordered Isma Ayebare to refund the money that he extorted from the victims.
The court issued the orders today (August 27, 2025) after Ayebare was found guilty of the crime.
Court heard that during his tenure as Chairperson, Ayebare fraudulently obtained money from hundreds of peasants by falsely claiming that payment of money to him was a requirement for them to benefit from the PDM program.
Launched the PDM program in February 2022, PDM is a government multi-sectoral strategy to reduce poverty by moving the 39% households (i.e., 3.5 million households or 16.1 million Ugandans) under subsistence economy (living hand-to-mouth), into the money economy.
Government in the financial year 2022/2023 allocated sh100m for each of the 10,594 Parishes across the country to support the aforementioned Ugandans to engage in commercially viable agribusiness value chain enterprises.
According to the 2024 Auditor General’s report, in the financial year 2023/2024, Parliament appropriated sh1,059.6b for the PDM program.
A review of the status of the PDM data collection from the PDM information system national household registration reports as of April 2024 revealed that household-level data collection was at 79.93% progress level, while the population registered was only at 46.30% progress level.
According to the Auditor General, the data should have been the basis upon which the population would be profiled to identify qualifying beneficiaries, as well as facilitate periodic reviews and impact assessments.
It was noted that 2,985 PDM SACCOs in 127 Local Governments (LG) did not have registered offices on their documents; 567 PDM SACCOs in 41 LGs registered offices did not exist, while 2,898 PDM SACCOs in 121 LGs did not have evidence of a signboard showing their names and address.
The auditor general recommended that the accounting officers of Local Governments ensure that PDM committees are trained in the prioritisation and incorporation of PDM activities in the budgets and work plans, and ensure that all committees are fully constituted and functional.