The Parish Development Model (PDM) Secretariat has launched strategic engagements with local government leaders across the country to establish clear recovery modalities for the Shs1 million loans advanced to beneficiaries under the government's flagship poverty alleviation programme.
The move follows the expiry of the mandatory two-year grace period granted to beneficiaries who received funds between 2022 and 2024.
Local authorities are now expected to mobilise recipients to begin repaying the loans to sustain the revolving fund system.
Speaking during a regional review workshop over the weekend, PDM Deputy National Coordinator Bonny Kashaija said the engagements are intended to gather feedback from local leaders on the programme's implementation, identify persistent challenges and inform future policy adjustments.
“Timely repayment is important in strengthening the revolving fund system and promoting financial discipline among beneficiaries,” Kashaija said.
“Recovering these funds is essential to ensuring the long-term sustainability of the initiative, which aims to uplift households out of the subsistence economy. In future, we hope our people can be rescued from money lenders and high bank interest rates as they grow their own parish banks,” he added.
As the recovery phase begins, concerns have emerged over administrative bottlenecks and strict residency requirements that some urban leaders say risk excluding legitimate beneficiaries.
During engagements held in Mbarara City, local leaders were cautioned against bureaucratic practices that could deny long-term residents access to PDM services on the basis of their ancestral origins rather than their current place of residence.
Mbarara City Deputy Resident City Commissioner Jackie Kankunda challenged local authorities over what she described as the exclusion of residents who have lived and worked in urban parishes for many years.
“Do not deny funds to people who have lived in a parish for more than 20 years by sending them to their home districts to become beneficiaries there,” Kankunda said.
“Individuals who have built livelihoods, paid local taxes and resided in an urban parish for decades deserve equal access to the revolving capital,” she added.
Kankunda argued that requiring such residents to seek support from their districts of birth undermines the core principles of the government's bottom-up economic development strategy.
The PDM Secretariat has directed that all loan repayments be remitted through designated PDM SACCO electronic wallet accounts to enhance accountability and safeguard the funds.
Officials believe that standardising loan recovery procedures while addressing implementation challenges at local level will strengthen the programme and protect the multi-trillion-shilling investment made by the government.
Currently, each parish participating in the programme is estimated to have received approximately Shs400 million in revolving funds aimed at supporting household income-generating activities and accelerating the transition from subsistence to commercial production.