Joyce Namugambe
As a way of highlighting the importance of parish development model for the people to understand and get engaged to the program, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament Thomas Tayebwa gave out 25 brand new HP laptops to parish chiefs in Ruhinda North, Mitooma District to help in the implementation of the Program.
This follows allegations that parish chiefs in Mitooma district were illegally charging between 10,000 and 40,000 shillings to enter the beneficiaries in the system, which forced them to complain, making the Deputy Speaker respond. According to Tayebwa, shortage of equipment’s to be used must have been one of the reasons for the chiefs to charge the beneficiaries.
Hon Tayebwe, who is also the Ruhinda North area Member of Parliament also distributed 6 (six) brand new HP printers to all the sub counties that make up his constituency to help them while carrying out PDM program activities.
During the meeting he held with the parish chiefs and parish Sacco chairpersons, district political and technical leadership, Tayebwa sought to review findings from the community engagements about the PDM program.
Tayebwa expressed concern that parish local leaders in some areas have introduced their own guidelines that have scared some people from engaging into the program. He noted conditions such as making it mandatory for husbands to sign for their wives before being approved, and on top of the money the beneficiaries are charged to be put in the system, they are also required to pay some more money for coordination purposes.
He warned parish chiefs to desist from the act of bringing in conditions which violate guidelines that were set for the program, as it is one of the reasons that discourage people from actively engaging into the PDM program.
Hon Tayebwa was as well informed that beneficiaries are charged 51000 to print a 17 pages PDM application form document, saying that the printers that he provided will help to reduce on the costs of printing the application forms. He therefore provided 10,000 PDM applications forms to solve the problem.
Tayebwa was in his constituency last week monitoring government programs and engaging the community on wealth creation with a major focus on parish development model, through meetings at parish level which has helped him pick enough information from both the beneficiaries and those who are yet to benefit.
It should be noted that the challenges with parish development model program have been going on around the country as beneficiaries have been denied the opportunity to access the program funds due to the different conditions imposed on the process, which is against the set conditions, this has scared many of the people around the country from applying for the funds for fear of the consequences.
