Authorities arrest 10 officials over PDM cash
According to recently published data by the PDM Secretariat on districts that mismanaged the PDM funds, Amuru received a total of Shs412.1 million. and lost lost Shs113 million. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The suspects include parish chiefs and sacco executives from the sub-counties of Myanzi, Kassanda, Manyogaseka, Nalutuntu and Makokoto.
Police have arrested 10 officials over extorting money from Parish Development Model (PDM) beneficiaries.
The suspects include parish chiefs and sacco executives from the sub-counties of Myanzi, Kassanda, Manyogaseka, Nalutuntu and Makokoto.
“A section of the affected beneficiaries have been volunteering information where some of the Parish Chiefs and Sacco executives collude to extort money,”Ms Phoebe Namulindwa, the Kassanda resident district commissioner, revealed in an interview on Wednesday. She added: “I instructed the officer in charge of criminal investigations at Kassanda police to open up a general inquiry file on the allegation about extortion by some of the parish chiefs and sacco executives”.
Ms Namulindwa said the officials are violating the PDM guidelines.
The continuous complaints prompted the district authorities to call for a general inquiry into the allegations leading to arrests. “Under police general inquiry, Kassanda GEF 006/2023, we have more than 10 culprits arrested,” Ms Namulindwa said.
Kassanda has 92 PDM Saccos that, according to the Kassanda District PDM focal person, Mr Michael Wamuntu, are fully-constituted with functional leadership. The district has so far received a total of Shs8.9 billion.
According to the district investigation team, some of the PDM Sacco executives in connivance with the parish chiefs have reportedly been demanding between Shs50,000 Shs70,000 to have the names of beneficiaries entered into the data system.
The officials reportedly claimed that the money was for application forms, bank account opening, and photocopy services.
“We laid a trap and arrested some of these people as they received this money against the PDM guidelines. We are still conducting investigations,” an official, who is part of the investigating team, told Daily Monitor yesterday.
The guidelines
One of the guidelines limits the civil servants, including the parish chiefs from direct operations of the PDM Saccos. They (civil servants) are supposed to help in the sensitisation process.
The loan is extended to a household. The guidelines limit the funds to a single household who can access a maximum of Shs1million.
The recipient household must be profiled on the PDM Information System.
In Kassanda, 22 parishes have so far received Shs117m each on their respective Sacco accounts, 40 parishes have Shs100m on their respective accounts, 10 parishes have Shs92m of their respective Sacco accounts while 20 parishes have Shs75m on their respective Sacco accounts.
pdm project
The programme is aimed at getting 39 percent of the country’s 46 million population that lives from hand-to-mouth, out of poverty.
From the start, a section of Ugandans, have expressed skepticism over the success of the project.
Government is expected to splurge Shs1 trillion on the programme under the bottom-up approach. Each of the 10,694 parishes will receive Shs100m which will be sent in installments.
