ISO to Monitor PDM Implementation

The government has considered deploying operatives of the Internal Security Organization-ISO as the second-line monitors for the implementation of the Parish Development Model-PDM.   

Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to the Treasury in the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, reveals that they intend to leverage the operation structures of ISO, to stamp out corruption tendencies in the implementation of PDM. 

In 2022, the government undertook to implement the PDM as the latest livelihood improvement program targeting to take development planning and resources to the Parish level to ensure that the national development is fully embraced right from the grassroots. 

Under the program, the government allocates each parish 100 million in every financial, which money is eventually disbursed to individual households, which are each given one million shillings, to boost their respective enterprises of choice.   

However, Ggoobi admits that in its early stages of implementation, the program has suffered violation by unscrupulous individuals, whose selfish conduct is threatening its relevance and success.  

He explains that the government is concerned that some Parish Chiefs who are supposed to oversee the effective implementation of the program, are conniving with leaders of the PDM committees to abuse the program for self-enrichment. 

He indicates that as a remedy, the Ministry has empowered ISO operatives with a newly acquired digital tool, to start verifying every detail of the beneficiaries, which the Parish Chiefs uploaded on the centralized program’s Management Information System.

Ggoobi reveals that the Ministry of Finance is already coordinating an inter-ministerial committee that will regularly share information and emerging reports about the implementation of all government wealth-creation interventions that are implemented in the country. 

For instance, according to him, they already obtained reports of technical officers in districts who connive with PDM Committee leaders to register and disburse money to ghost beneficiaries and leave out the genuine members.

According to reports at the Ministry of Finance, a total of 2 trillion shillings has so far been dispatched to finance the Parish Development Model Program across the country. The PSST indicates that 1.05 trillion shillings will also be released this financial year beginning with January 2025. 

Meanwhile, the deployment of ISO operatives has come at a time when several District PDM Focal Persons and Parish Chiefs are already facing charges related to the program’s mismanagement.  

For instance in Masaka district; John Baptist Matovu the District Production Officer also doubling as PDM Focal Person, Joseph Akuguzibwe and Jumba Peter Kyakamala, the Parish Chiefs of Ssunga and Makonzi wards respectively in Bukakata sub-county, are on remand in prison for alleged misappropriation of PDM funds.