Museveni copied students loans idea from me and messed it up- Besigye
Photo by Lubowa Abubaker
KAMPALA.
Three-time presidential contestant Kizza Besigye has said President Museveni “copied” the idea of the Students Loan Scheme from the opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party and messed up its implementation because he did not understand how it was intended to work.
In an interview on Friday, Dr Besigye said Mr Museveni midway the 2011 campaign, “jumped” onto the bandwagon to promise Ugandans that he would implement the FDC’s proposed loan scheme when he realised the excitement it was breeding among the electorate.
“It is a fact that the scheme was not in Museveni/NRM manifesto, but was in mine. It’s being implemented two years to end of the [presidential] term by transferring what they say was State House Scholarship fund,” Dr Besigye said.
The loan scheme seeks to help needy but bright students pursue studies in private and public universities. The loans will be repaid after the students have graduated, at 7 per cent interest.
The scheme has attracted criticism with opposition Uganda People’s Congress party accusing the government of unbalanced allocation of the loans, arguing that the north and east should have been given special consideration since the regions were affected by war.
The list of beneficiaries released last week shows 448 students from western region, 339 from east, 287 from central and 157 from north received the loans. Dr Besigye scoffed at the loan scheme, saying the government just shifted the controversial State House scholarship to confuse Ugandans to believe that they are offering loans to them.
‘Not accurate’
However, the Uganda Media Centre boss, Mr Ofwono Opondo, refuted Dr Besigye’s assertions, saying several other countries like Tanzania, Kenya and South Africa have for some time been implementing students loan schemes and that such countries could not have copied Dr Besigye’s idea.
Mr Ofwono said the Students Loan Scheme was born out of the [late Prof Senteza William] Kajubi Commission that sought to universalise education to Ugandans and that the universal primary and secondary education and the current loan scheme are some of the recommendations of that commission.
THE CASE
In the run up to the 2011 general elections, the Inter-Party Coalition, a loose coalition of Opposition parties and political pressure groups headed by Dr Besigye, developed what they called “correcting injustices” of the NRM in education.
The coalition manifesto pledged to improve standards of education through; starting a student loan scheme at no interest, a minimum monthly salary of Shs400, 000 to teachers and government funded school feeding for all students.
