Africa-Press – Uganda. Serere District leaders have challenged the district staff overseeing the Parish Development Model (PDM) programme to help beneficiaries to readjust their enterprise selection from the directly rain-fed enterprises to animal rearing.
PDM is one of the latest strategies by the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) government— which has been in power for nearly 40 years– aimed at elevating the 39 percent Ugandan households from poverty level into the money economy.
Mr Stephen Ochola, the LC5 chairperson for Serere District said they have had a forensic look into the enterprise selection and discovered that some of the enterprises selected will not enable the beneficiaries to have the desired returns.
He said picking the PDM money and dumping it in sorghum farming will literally add no value to the livelihood of beneficiaries but instead if the people in unison take on animal rearing as the sole enterprise, they stand better chances to achieve.
“It is the reason that as a district we are on the campaign to dislodge all rice farmers from the swamps, and at the end of the day have this swamps as our grazing destination as it used to be,” Mr Ochola explained during the launch of the PDM money disbursement at the district headquarters on Tuesday.
Mr Ochola also asked the PDM secretariat to allocate a budget that will enable technical staff at the district to monitor the implementation of the projects, adding that in the current framework, there is no money allocated.
Ms Hellen Adoa, the state minister for fisheries, who doubles as the woman MP for Serere District, who was the guest of honour at the launch said after people have embraced the animal rearing, they must also shun, with immediate effect the business of fragmenting land.
She said there is no meaningful enterprise selection that the people will do successfully on decimal pieces of land, advising the Teso people to borrow a leaf from wealthier countries that have land zoned for farming.
“We can coexist within one home as a family and spare the other limited land for farming purposes rather than fragmenting it the way we have done,” Ms Adoa said.
She said she will look for bicycles to facilitate the parish chiefs’ movement as they supervise the programme.
“To you the parish chiefs, you are employed to be at the parish, which is your office, where there is any function within the parish that always endeavor to attend and enlighten the people,” Ms Adoa said.
Mr Fred Opolot, the MP for Pigire County, Serere District said animal rearing is the only salvation out of poverty in the area.
He said there is a market for sheep and milk in the Arab world for Uganda to exploit, and that should start with PDM.
“Let’s start to work, let’s take this programme extremely seriously, and the sub county officials should equally help,” Mr Opolot said.
Mr James Egwapu, focal point person for PDM, said the district has 4B in its account towards the implementation of the PDM programme, adding that by Tuesday the various banks had been given instructions to disburse the money to individual beneficiary accounts.
He said there are 70 registered Saccos in the 70 parishes that constitute Serere district.
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