The Minister for the Presidency Hon. Babirye Milly Babalanda has ordered all Resident District/ City Commissioner (RDCs/RCCs) and their deputies to be on ground for three weeks so that they sensitize Ugandans more about Parish Development Model (PDM), the new government poverty alleviation program.
For the past two weeks, Ministers have been traversing different parts of the country sensitizing leaders and other stakeholders on the effective execution of the developmental program.
Speaking at one of the local radio stations in Kampala on Saturday, Hon. Babalanda said the order to RDCs is part of President Yoweri Museveni’s directives on PDM implementation.
She noted that during the recently concluded PDM sensitization campaign, some communities were not fully engaged due to the limited time that was allocated to ministers who were tasked to spread the program gospel to stakeholders.
“Due to challenges of limited time and hard to reach areas, some communities were not properly sensitized about PDM.So with these three weeks, we are optimistic that the commissioners will be able to traverse all corners of Uganda engaging people about the program,” the Minister said.
On the same radio show, Mrs Babalanda appealed to all Ugandans to embrace PDM irrespective of their political, social and religious ideologies, saying it’s the right avenue they should use to fight poverty.
“The Program is well constituted to help drive poverty out of communities.”
Mrs Babalanda also explained that government decided to come up with PDM after observing that people at the very lower levels do not effectively participate in developmental initiatives because information about programs ends at the top administrative or at the Division levels.
“Yet the lower level people are the ones that largely drive the development activities such as business or even artisanries….For Example; there are many programs initiated by the President but many of them have not seen good success because the leaders who should have supported them did not do so. Lack of political will by the leaders and the people having negative attitudes are important mindset issues that cause poverty in our communities,”she said.
She added that after the sensitisation campaign, the commissioners will on 25th July, 2022 head to the National Leadership Institute (NALI) in Kyankwanzi for their induction retreat.
During its launch in February, 2022, President Yoweri Museveni said through PDM, Government will take services to the people in a more effective way and receive actionable feedback from them on wealth creation and Government-provided services to quicken socio-economic transformation.
H.E the President explained that the program will reduce the number of the core poor – who work for the stomach as well as deal with the remaining challenge of raising family incomes.
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