Serere: Shock as Shs 90 million Emyooga funds meant for journalists is handed to radio callers

By John Ogulei

At least Shs 90 million meant for Emyooga Programme in Serere district was allocated to the wrong beneficiaries, this website has established.

President Museveni in August 2019 launched Emyooga Programme, a poverty eradication programme meant to transform 68% of Ugandan homesteads from subsistence farming to market-oriented production.

The programme is meant to benefits 18 categories of people namely; boda-bodas, drivers, salon operators, farmers, artists, journalists, local leaders among others.

Serere being among the benefiting districts received a total of 1.68 billion and Shs 90 million of this was meant for Saccos of journalists,

This website has however exclusively learnt that the district last year allocated this money to non journalists.

Out of over 200 registered Sacco beneficiaries less than a quarter are journalists, we can exclusively confirm.

John Moses Etiu, the secretary Pingire County journalists Sacco during an interaction with this reporter acknowledged that most members who registered as journalists are not Journalists and haven't worked with any media outlet.

"Members in my SACCO are not Journalists. We only used that as a tool to benefit from Government," Etiu said adding that he, too, is not a journalist.

To our shock, Etiu admitted that they masqueraded as journalists because that was one of the easiest routes of accessing this money.

Patrick Odongo the chairperson Kasilo County Journalists SACCO and former staff of Voice of Serere Radio also acknowledged that in his group there was a big number of beneficiaries who were not journalists.

He said that out of the 17 registered beneficiaries only five were media practitioners while others are radio callers.

"It's true most of our members are not journalists. Some are just radio callers and agents," noted Opolot.

Serere District has less than 50 professional journalists and most practice their journalism from Soroti City and other major towns in Uganda.

Samson Adongu of Serere County Journalists SACCO and a journalist working with Voice of Teso radio, has  blamed the mess on district technocrats and government.

He said that during an induction at Soroti University government categorised radio callers and agents as journalists which to him was not proper.

"My colleague you were around that day when the minister clearly told us that even radio callers are journalists why are you probing me that much," Adongu queried.

Hellen Adoa Abeku the Serere district Woman MP expressed her dismay with the district technocrats whom she blamed for disbursing funds to wrong beneficiaries.

"It's unfortunate to learn that the district went ahead to disburse money to wrong members without verification. The money has gone into wrong hands. How can a small constituency of Pingire have 43 journalists? It's a laughable matter but needs further probing" Adoa said.

Fred Opolot, the Pingire County Member of Parliament also confirmed that a majority of Emyooga beneficiaries are not journalists but rather radio callers and agents.

But Opolot, a former executive director of the Uganda Media Centre said that the group [radio callers] deserves to benefit because they sacrifice their time to listen and call into various radio stations in the region.

Simon Peter Opolot, the Serere District Commercial Officer, attributed the error to the Microfinance Support Center which misguided the technocrats on the beneficiaries.

"That's the problem of Microfinance Support Center not the district," said Opolot.