A team of Namutumba district executives on a monitoring round of government supported projects led by the Resident District Commissioner (RDC) John Bosco Mubiito were dismayed to find equipment donated by the government to boost income generating activities five years ago, rotting in the gardens.
The RDC’s team which also included Betty Nakaggwa, a Labour Support Officer from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, were dismayed to find a machine for making paver bricks still stationed at the site where it was placed on delivery five years ago.
The machine is part of the equipment donated by the ministry to ‘jua kali’ entrepreneurs as support to the President’s initiative to boost small and medium enterprises in the country.
RDC Mubiito who was visibly angered by the neglect of the beneficiaries, threatened to take punitive action on abusers of government assistance, arguing that their action is a disincentive to the President to continue helping other needy people elsewhere.
He lamented that the equipment intended to improve people’s household incomes is lying idle and being wasted which is an injustice to members of the informal sector who would have benefitted from the donation, and swore to arrest people whom he said are maliciously trampling down on government poverty reduction programmes.
The brick making machine worth over sh50m is alleged to have been given to Nakyere Youth Development Association five years ago. Giving an explanation, Rajab Waiswa, a group member, said they failed to raise money to buy sand, stones and cement to use the machine.
The RDC threatened to take the machine and give it to a group that is prepared to use it profitably, wondering how a group of twenty energetic young men could fail to raise money for buying raw materials for using the equipment.
Elsewhere, the monitoring was impressed by the performance of other groups like tailors, bodaboda riders and welders, who were found to have greatly prospered.
Hayani Kimera, the chairperson for Namutumba Youth Development Association testified that members’ lifestyles had greatly changed as a result of the sewing machines received under the arrangement.
Nakagwa said that they came up with the donations to help the groups under the informal sector to boost their respective businesses with provision of production machines to fight poverty.
She noted that the program which started in 2018 has so far assisted 781 groups in 93 districts across the country, and that the program is still ongoing.
In more testimony, Benjamin Kanaabi, the chairperson for Kibigo Tukole Bodaboda Association in Bugobi Town Council reported that out of the one motorcycle they were given, they have procured four more and that their income has greatly improved.