Minister for Security, Maj. Gen. Jim Muhwezi, has vowed to crack down on corrupt officials sabotaging the Parish Development Model (PDM.
“We shall apprehend more of the corrupt officials, who are frustrating government programs like PDM,” Muhwezi warned via his X (formerly twitter) handle.
Muhwezi said that in PDM, beneficiaries must receive Shs 1,000,000 in full, nothing less.
“I encourage the public to be vigilant and report these corrupt officials to the Police,” he added, calling for active citizen involvement in protecting the integrity of the initiative.
While on PDM assessment tour in Ankole sub-region in February, President Museveni said that perpetrators will be required to work for at least ten months (Shs. 100,000 per month) until the Shs1 million is recovered.
“We shall arrest those who just eat PDM money and pay through labor while in prison. In the prisons, they have a lot of work to cultivate maize, cotton and other crops, so those who get PDM money and eat it will work there without pay,” Museveni said.
Early this week, The Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development [MOFPED] released Shs 529 billion for the Parish Development Model [PDM], taking a big step in Uganda’s wealth creation efforts.
The PDM money is part of the Shs 19.7 trillion MOFED released for quarter 4 of the current financial year 2024/2025 which ends on June 30, 2025.
Each financial year government releases over Shs 1 trillion for the PDM, with each of the 10,594 parishes receiving Shs 100 million for the programmes beneficiaries that must get Shs 1 million soft loan from the parish revolving fund [PRF] to invest in selected enterprises like coffee farming, dairy farming, fish farming, piggery, poultry keeping, and banana growing among several other enterprises.
The PDM, a government initiative was launched in February 2022, to move 3.5 million households in Uganda from the subsistence to the money economy, with focus on the commercialisation of the agricultural value chain in the country.