Africa-Press – Uganda. Authorities are hunting for the acting community development officer (CDO) for Patongo Sub-county in Agago District over allegations of faking documents to defraud some beneficiaries of the Parish Development Model (PDM) programme.
The deputy Resident District Commissioner (RDC) of Agago, Ms Susan Akot Moro, said the officer, who is also the parish chief of Odonkiwinyo, allegedly deleted names of eight PDM beneficiaries from the documents earlier on approved by the office of the chief administrative officer for payment.
Ms Akot told this publication that her office received an alert from a bank (name withheld due to ongoing investigations) last Friday asking her to intervene because of the irregularities the bank had discovered in the particulars of the Sacco members.
She said the bank told her that the parish chief only submitted to them 100 beneficiaries, contrary to the documents cleared by the CAO’s office, which indicated 108 beneficiaries.
“When we look at the document shared by the CAO, it showed 108 beneficiaries and the first disbursement was made to 34 beneficiaries while the second disbursement, the CAO cleared 74 beneficiaries of the same group totalling 108 beneficiaries,” Ms Akot said.
She added: “Surprisingly the CDO only presented 100 names of beneficiaries to the bank and when she was called to clarify the differences, she did not pick neither her calls nor that of the CAO.”
Ms Akot said the matter has been referred to the CAO and police for investigation.
Mr Daniel Ogik, the treasurer of Odongkiwinyo Parish Sacco, which has been affected, said that the acting CDO told them that the new PDM guidelines do not allow beneficiaries to withdraw more than Shs108 million.
According to Mr Ogik, this puzzled them since all their group members were duly cleared by the office of the CAO and were reliably informed that they would get Shs108 million.
“We have 108 members who were all cleared and verified by CAO and received Shs108 million in our account but the CDO told us not to withdraw all the money since we were only 100 members that were allowed to withdraw the money,” Mr Ogik said.
Attempts to speak to the acting CDO to respond to the allegations were futile since repeated calls to her known telephone numbers could not go through by press time.
But Mr Daniel Cere, the Patongo Sub-county chairman, said: “My office is aware of the beneficiaries whose names were deleted by the CDO and I still do not know the reasons as to why she has deleted those names yet they were all cleared by the CAO.”
“This is an act of corruption, which needs to be handled explicitly by the office of the chief administrative officer and that of the Agago RDC,” Mr Cere added.
Sources said in June, the Agago RDC halted the registration of new PDM members until current beneficiaries in the first phase were duly screened.
This directive followed complaints from a section of local leaders over irregularities in the registration process of beneficiaries, whereby Sacco leaders in Pece Parish, in Patongo Town Council paid themselves Shs800,000 each while their wives and family members each received between Shs400,000 to Shs500,000.
Agago District received Shs6.5 billion to be disbursed to 117 parishes with 4,296 beneficiaries of the PDM programme in 2022/2023 financial year.
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