By Aggrey Baba
President Yoweri Museveni’s poverty-alleviation programme came under scrutiny once again on Monday with the People’s Front for Freedom (PFF) demanding that government write off loans owed by struggling Ugandans who got Parish Development Model (PDM) loans, but their businesses and agricultural investments have collapsed.
Speaking at the party headquarters in Kampala, PFF acting chairman Dr Michael Lulume Bayiga argued that government was exposing some of the country’s poorest citizens to debt pressure after encouraging them to borrow money to establish small businesses, only for some of those investments to be wiped out by demolitions during the enforcement of the national trade-order, drought and the economic current economic crisis.
According to Bayiga, the beneficiaries had been drawn into the money economy with loans of UGX1m each, but those who subsequently lost their businesses or harvests were now struggling to meet repayment obligations, further questioning the fairness of demanding money from people whose ability to repay had been undermined by circumstances they could not control, insisting that government needed to reconsider its approach before the programme’s intended beneficiaries were pushed deeper into financial distress.
“We are starting a campaign to urge government to write off the PDM debts as bad debts,” Bayiga said.
He also placed the affected beneficiaries among the lowest 39% of income earners, arguing that they were precisely the kind of vulnerable citizens who needed protection when their attempts to establish sustainable livelihoods failed.
In urban centres, he blamed the enforcement of trade-order regulations and demolitions of trading spaces for destroying some of the small businesses established with PDM funds. Beneficiaries who invested in agriculture, he added, had also suffered losses following prolonged drought.
The result, according to Bayiga, was a troubling situation in which some of these people had lost the income-generating activities they expected to use to repay government, yet remained burdened by the loans. He warned that most of these people would end up in prison if government fails to reconsider its recovery plan.
He further said that the beneficiaries had been expected to begin repaying after about two years, leaving those whose investments had failed facing obligations without reliable sources of income.
According to him, only UGX6 billion has been recovered from the billions invested in the programme.
PFF now, wants government to recognize the losses suffered by affected households and write off their debts rather than treat every struggling borrower as though they have deliberately refused to pay back the money.
The party also suggested that government offers fresh support for beneficiaries to rebuild their businesses and livelihoods, with the acting party chairman saying PFF would present additional proposals on how struggling Ugandans could be brought into the money economy soon. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
