The Minister of State for Youth and Children Affairs, Hon. Balaam Barugahara has revealed that the political interference is hindering the implementation of the Youth Livelihood Programme (YLP) and Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP).
While appearing before the Committee on Gender, Labour and Social Development on Tuesday, 25 February 2025, the minister said that politicians are frustrating the programmes by sending wrong messages that the funds are a reward from government.
“In Busoga, there is a politician told people during a rally that ‘this money is for you to eat’. When a leader who is one of us says such, you do not expect beneficiaries to pay back,” said Barugahara.
The two programmes are supposed to offer financial support and capacity building to youth and women groups targeting the poor and most vulnerable. The funds are run on a revolving basis where beneficiaries make a refund within three years.
In West Nile, Barugahara said mobilisers of the NRM party considered the funds as pending payment they demanded from the party.
Barugahara was dismayed by law enforcers who he said have failed the programme by releasing local leaders that defrauded groups.
“In one village of Butebo District, the chairperson stole Shs8.5 million meant for a group and ran away to another district. He was arrested but later released. He has affected the group because it has not benefited,” said Barugahara.
He also blamed the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development for weakening implementation, with budget cuts that left a ‘skeleton’ budget for running the secretariat, supervision and collection of money.
“Ever since I became a minister, I have travelled throughout the country and out of 100 per cent of my trips, the ministry has facilitated only 10 per cent. As a minister, Am I supposed to use personal money or the salary to do supervision work?” he asked.
The National Coordinator for UWEP and YLP, Winfred Masiko said the secretariat is supported with10 per cent of the total funds allocated to the programme.
“The money we send to local governments is very small for them to be able to supervise and train groups and collect money. Sometimes, our focal persons are overwhelmed by other programmes,” said Masiko.
Masiko however, commended the programme’s demonstrable impact saying out of the Shs329 billion, Shs79 billion has been recovered amidst the COVID-19 effects.
Busongora County North MP, Hon. Sowedi Kitanywa who also served as a YLP district coordinator wants government to come up with a community development fund to bridge the gaps in supervision.
“If we do not have a fund for supervision, then we will be putting our efforts to waste. We have community development officers at districts and sub-counties but we expect them to move on foot to monitor programmes,” said Kitanywa.
Hon. Allan Mayanja (NUP, Nakaseke Central County) charged the secretariat to come up with a formula of recovering money, observing that it is impractical to expect beneficiaries to refund money after such a long period.
“It is almost 10 years for YLP and 9 years for UWEP; you say the recovery is supposed to be done in three years. You need to state that for some groups the money is recoverable and for this other group, money is indeed non-recoverable,” Mayanja said.
The PWD representative, Hon. Alex Ndeezi asked the ministry to find other sources of funds to capitalise the programme other than relying on recoveries from beneficiaries.