Emyooga Program will not fail- MSC assures Ugandans

Microfinance Support Centre (MSC), an implementing agency of Emyooga Program, has assured Ugandans that the program will not fail like the previous government schemes.

This was revealed on Wednesday, during MSC’s engagement with several media stakeholders, on the progress of Emyooga program, at Golden Tulip Hotel.

As an implementing agency, MSC presented the Emyooga concept to the media stakeholders and took them through the progress of the program in transforming the social and economic livelihoods of poor Ugandans.

According to MSC Deputy Executive Director, Petronilla Helen Masika, by the end of April, MSC had disbursed Shs 200 billion to 6,394 SACCOs in 346 constituencies in 146 districts. She added that by April 2021, Emyooga SACCOs had savings to a tune of Shs 9.9 billion.

Many of the previous Microfinance programs like the Entandikwa Scheme and the Rural Finance Program did not meet the expectations and there has been a narrative that the Emyooga program could follow suit.

However, according to James Muhwezi, MSC’s Resource Mobilization Manager, this is not going to be the case. He says as MSC, they have been able to find out why the previous schemes were not able to succeed.

He says one of the reasons was that the SACCOs and groups received money when they were not ready.

“They did not have what was necessary to deliver these finances, the capacities, the right leaderships. They did not have the right systems in place to deliver that money. Beyond that, there were no mechanisms to monitor this money, at that time”

Muhwezi says as MSC, they picked from those failures and have adressed them in the Emyooga Program.

“..At the beginning of this program, we carried out a rigorous mobilization exercise throughout the countey and the idea here was to promote saving among them. The idea was to change their mindset so that as money comes in, their mind is prepared to receive this money”

Speaking at the engagement, MSC’s Executive Director John Peter Mujuni recognized the media as one of the most critical partners in the journey of transforming the social-economic transformation of Ugandans.

“I want to first of all thank you for giving us feedback on what you think, what you feel about the Emyooga program. I can say that we are very much on the same page about the concerns. We share the concerns and i think once we address completely the various concerns, we will have be a wonderful program”

He appealed to the media to disseminate in the most appropriate way information about Microfinance.

“People in the rural areas want to hear who is succeeding in Microfinance and how. They want to know because they want to learn. The person in Kapchworwa wants to hear about who is succeeding, which SACCO is succeeding in Mbale so they can pick lessons and also make their SACCOs succeed. So they are looking up to you, you’re the ones to do this job.”