Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The government has been asked to set up offices at the lower local council to support the effective coordination and monitoring of the Parish Development Model-PDM program.
The program comes in as the latest poverty alleviation scheme in which the government targets to directly support the various income-generating enterprises at parish levels, as the lowest unit for planning and development across the country.
In its initial stage, each of the parishes has been allocated a tune of 17 million shillings, which will be released before the end of this financial year, while the government also budgeted for 100 million shillings for each of the parishes in the next financial year, to finance the program.
But the PDM targeted beneficiaries who attended a meeting in Masaka city want the government to make adjustments to the program’s implementation framework, by establishing offices at parish levels to ease coordination and close monitoring between the beneficiaries and implementers.
Patrick Muyobu, the chairperson of Kimanya ward in Kimanya-Kabonera city division, say that without close physical addresses in terms of offices that are close to the beneficiaries, the program is bound to face lapses in its monitoring.
He argues that although the government took the task of recruiting parish chiefs as first-line supervisors of the program, it was an omission to have their base at sub-county headquarters, which he says are distances away from the actual points where the targeted enterprises are being implemented.
Muyobu says the gap has already been witnessed in the initial processes of community mobilization and enterprise selection exercises, where the parish chiefs and other technical persons faced challenges in connecting with communities due to logistical inadequacies including the lack of vehicles.
Faisal Ssebugwawo, the Masaka City Youth Chairperson says they wish to have particulars of the funded enterprises kept at parish level offices other than being transferred to the sub-county headquarters where the recently recruited Parish Chiefs are based.
Ssebugwawo wants the government to amend the program implementation guidelines to allow the beneficiaries to contribute some funds for hiring PDM coordination offices in their closest localities.
Their demands are backed by Masaka City Mayor Florence Namayanja, who similarly wants the government to make adjustments in the program implementation, such that it can have direct attachment to the parish local government administrations.
Sheila Akello, the Masaka City PDM program Focal Person says they welcome all suggestions from the concerned stakeholders, indicating that all the concerns raised will be presented to the relevant government agencies for possible consideration in the course of implementation.
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