Covid relief cash: Shs 14.7bn already given out to beneficiaries

The Minister for Gender, Betty Amongi has said a total of shillings 14.7 billion has already been given out to beneficiaries of the Covid-19 relief cash tokens.

On Thursday last week, Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja officially launched the disbursement of the relief cash as promised by government.

While giving an update on the payments, Gender minister Amongi said at least 38 percent of the targeted population had received their funds.

“As at 10:00am this morning (Tuesday), a total of 143,642 beneficiaries had been paid which is a percentage of 38% and amounting go 14,712,531,850 shillings,” Amongi said.

Amongi said that government had so far received 377,021 names of beneficiaries and at least 31 out of 42 cities/municipalities had already submitted 100 percent of the required data.

At the end of the program, government aims to reach out to 501,107 households across Kampala Metropolitan Area, the 11 cities and at least 30 municipalities.

So far, according to Amongi, the number of beneficiaries recieved represents 75.23 percent of the total targeted beneficiaries.

Concerns

Amongi revealed that the ministry is concerned that out of the total records of the 377,021 records submitted to them, a total of 150, 915 records did not pass successful verification against telecom databases.

According to Amongi, these did not pass verification due to a number of reasons.

Some of the reasons, according to Amongi include; “Telephone numbers registered under different names from the national ID names, non-mobile money registered numbers, non-existent/unregistered telephone numbers.”

The minister said that the numbers that did not pass verification will now be sent back to the cities/ municipalities for either correction or for payment using the PostBank mobile facility- to the extent these beneficiaries possess a valid NIN.