As President of Uganda and Head of the National Policy Committee that supervises the implementation of Parish Development Model (PDM), His Excellency Yoweri Museveni will be undertaking a nationwide tour to assess the programme’s performance, engage stakeholders and get a hands-on understanding of the achievements and challenges so far. PDM aims to improve household incomes and enable inclusive, sustainable and equitable social-economic transformation of Ugandans.
Launched in 2022, the Parish Development Model targets to uplift 40% of Ugandans engaged in subsistence farming, “Okukolera Ekidda Kyonka”, translated as “working for only food” into a money economy. There is a general good feeling that PDM has been a success so far, therefore, the president’s tours are aimed at assessing the conditions that have enabled the programme to perform well and the challenges it faces.
One of the most important ingredients in the success of any programme or project is feedback. For example, nationally, the total number of SACCOs is 10,589, and during the financial year 2023/24, UGX 1,059.4 trillion was appropriated to Ministry of Finance to capitalise these SACCOs, UGX 1,058.75 trillion was transferred to all 10,589 PDM SACCOs, meaning UGX 200 million has been sent to each of these intuitions across Uganda.
Cumulatively, the Parish Revolving Fund capitalisation stands at UGX 2.197 trillion while the disbursement of this money stands at UGX 1.968 trillion translating into a 90% disbursement rate. Over 1.858 million Ugandans have so far benefitted from these PDM disbursement.
Without feedback from the ground, all this data could be disputed rightly or wrongly. That is why the president wants to visit beneficiaries and carry out an independent performance audit of the PDM.
Available data from Parish Development Model secretariat shows that 42% of Ugandans that have accesses to this money have invested in crop farming, 39% in livestock, 17% in poultry, 1% in fishing and 2% have opted for non-farming enterprises like food vending, baking, honey, local community stalls and briquette manufacturing.
It is against these colossal statistics in money terms and people involved that President Museveni has decided to retrace his journey of social-economic transformation of Uganda through the Parish Development Model. Remember Kibuku was the launch-pad of PDM way back in 2022, it is therefore appropriate that he starts his verification exercise in the same region.
In business, feedback is considered magical because it guides decision making, transforms production through identifying and correcting errors hence improved efficiency leading to client satisfaction.
The president wants to gather accurate feedback from beneficiaries themselves on how the money so far released has impacted their livelihood. If it is true that people are being transformed, then he can strengthen the current PDM policies and increase the budget for the programme.
The tours will also give the president and Ugandans an opportunity openly engage on the challenges of PDM and possible remedies. This enhances trust and strengthens the relationship between the people and their leaders. It also leads to the feeling of programme ownership as opposed to programme imposition.
The presidential tours will encourage accountability within SACCOs; by listening to local leaders and beneficiaries, the president will be able to realign some areas that are performing poorly due to ignorance. Feedback gives the president valuable insights into SACCO performances, practices of local leaders that are affecting better implementation of this programme and how to improve the performance at all levels. ·
Through these tours, the president will be able to gauge incidents of under-utilisation, poor prioritisation, misuse and utter negligence. This will give him the opportunity take corrective measures either at national or local level through policy changes and or enforcement of existing ones.
Therefore, President Museveni is justified to engage in field tours because he will be able to make accurate comparisons between the data presented to him by technocrats in government with what is on ground. He will make real-time on-site observations, have physical interactions with beneficiaries and experience the practical nitty-gritties of the PDM fuelled social-economic transformation taking place.
Communications Officer
Government Citizen Interaction Centre.
Member of Campfire Ideological Study Group.
