By Mulengera Reporters
Over the weekend, the 9th term-seeking YK Museveni of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) parted with a total of Shs21bn. This went into SACCOs belonging to different groups of informal sector operators and actors including Boda-Boda riders, mechanics and Masters of Ceremonies (MCs).
Coordinated by the influential Presidential Assistant Faruk Kirunda, the MCs’ SACCO is for all men and women who speak and entertain people at public functions. They speak at funerals, weddings, introduction and graduation ceremonies etc.
Currently, they wield more influence than ever before in Uganda. This makes them effective allies for a vote-seeking politician like Museveni to keep around himself and be on good terms with. The MCs have been zoned into 18 operational areas. Each of the MCs’ SACCOs will be entitled to Shs100m going into their coffers to enable members borrow at affordable interest and eventually pay back at just 6% interest.
Also partaking on the Museveni windfall of Shs21bn are groups of Industrial Skilling Hubs beneficiaries or graduates who have been undergoing formal training at the different skilling centers in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area districts and beyond. The Industrial Skilling Hubs beneficiaries will share a total of Shs8.8bn. Each of the respective SACCOs will receive Shs50m.
The mechanics SACCOs shared Shs11.1bn; the Boda Bodas’ Shs10bn with special attention going to Kampala riders SACCOs to benefit not less than 400,000 Boda-Boda riders or association members.
The Boda recipients and benefits converged at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds on Saturday where President Museveni personally delivered the dummy cheques to them. The President, who vowed to lock up whoever messes up the money for any of the recipient SACCOs, remorsefully referred to 2011 when he made similar interventions but didn’t go far because the money ended up being stolen and eaten. Those days Moses Byaruhanga was the President’s key pointman on all the Jua Kali interventions in Kampala.
In giving out all this money, General Museveni wants to shield the low income earners in Kampala against being manipulated by very exploitative money lenders who charge prohibitively very high interest per loan given out.
Gen Museveni wants SACCO members to be borrowing at 6% interest per annum and pay back within one year so that others also get the opportunity to borrow and build their lives too. The money subsequently will remain collective property for all SACCO members in perpetuity.
On the same Saturday, Gen Museveni received a total of 1,280 defectors from National Unity Platform, through his subordinates at Kyadondo. These included Richard Todwong the Secretary General, his Deputy Rose Namayanja and the Party’s National Treasurer Barbra Oundo.
The trio received the defectors at a big ceremony at Party headquarters at Kyadondo and they all registered their regret over the years and energy they spent over the years fighting and bad mouthing the President yet he is a good man.
That they regret all that hostility and castigate their NUP leaders who manipulated and instigated them into that futile enterprise. They promised to bring many more other defectors until when NUP is finally totally wiped out of all the ghettos of Kampala.
Todwong welcomed them and promised to connect them to life-changing opportunities so that they never regret their decision to call it quits with NUP and come to the NRM, which officials described as the leading and best party for Uganda.
The new defectors also promised to join the procession and be part of the large crowd of more than 1m people who will turn up to receive Museveni at Kololo on Tuesday as he comes from being nominated by the Electoral Commission at the newly inaugurated nomination grounds at Lubowa in Wakiso district. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
