A member of Mukono Municipality’s Grievance Redress Committee (GRC) of the World Bank-funded road construction project code-named Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area – Urban Development Programme (GKMA-UPA) has disclosed that the women’s poverty reduction intervention called GROW has failed to meet the intended goal.
Stellah Bukoma of Goma Division said that an unnamed commercial bank’s staff undertaking the GROW programme is said to be discouraging customers who attempt to access its loans, and advise them to instead take this bank’s loans.
Elaborating, she said, ‘Many government’s poverty reduction programmes take this direction and as the government thinks we are benefitting, yet we remain bogged down in perpetual poverty’.
Bukoma was on Friday reacting to a message by Mukono Municipality Assistant RDC Charles Mwogeza who had told a meeting of GRC members that the government has taken all strides to ensure women get out of poverty by setting up programmes like PDM and GROW.
While closing the one-day training session for the Municipality’s GRC members at the Mothers’ Union hall, Mwogeza had said that women are in a privileged position because they have the possibility to access both PDM and the women-only GROW programme.
Bukoma further said that in the post-COVID 19 period, a similar project specifically for women was said to be in the pipeline but, to date, it has never materialized, and added that women in the country have not adequately been facilitated to get to the coveted women emancipation.
She however pleaded for the President over this state of affairs saying, ‘President Museveni may not be aware of this; it is possible that he is willing to come to women’s rescue but is being frustrated by handlers of these programmes.
In response, Assistant RDC Mwogeza advised Bukoma to go for government’s sensitization programmes on poverty reduction in Mukono, and added that her issue is a long one calling for consultation from his superiors for an appropriate response.
Giving an overview of the GKM-UDP, Mukono Commercial Officer Kenneth Ntege said the GRC members are the pivot along which the entire road construction programme rotates, and urged them to grasp modalities enabling them to convince people to realize its benefits.
Ntege asked them to be innovative in emergency cases during their work, and gave an example of an ambulance looking for access to deliver a patient in a situation where the road is closed.
He said that in such and other similar cases, they must come to terms with nature and common sense and ensure that the ambulance which is on a lifesaving mission, must be accorded access.
Mukono Municipality Law Enforcement Officer attached to the Physical Planning Department Christopher Kayongo Mutumba urged participants to strive to remove any elements of friction during implementation, noting that World Bank funders do not want to operate in an atmosphere of misunderstandings of any nature among communities.
Mukono Municipality Law Enforcement Officer attached to the Physical Planning Department Christopher Kayongo Mutumba speaking.
Mutumba asked them to convince communities to tolerate shortcomings coming with the project like dust, and to tell the people that this situation will be around for only the 18 months that the project is projected to take.
Earlier, Mukono Mayor Erisa Mukasa Nkyoyooyo thanked President Museveni for having successfully negotiated for the project, and added that contracts have been signed and so no condition whatsoever can now block commencement of the work.
He was happy with the project and noted that on completion of all the roads in the municipality, congestion on the main Kampala-Jinja highway will be eased.
“Vehicles from either side of the road will be diverted before entering Mukono and our town will be given more of an impression of sanity with eased traffic,” Nkoyooyo said.