By Abdu Kimera
It was pomp and glamour in Irudu Town Council, Buyende Town Council when the Kamuli District Woman MP who doubles as the First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Affairs Hon Rebecca Kadaga kicked off the sensitization campaign of the Parish Development Model (PDM).
Kadaga promised to help the town council with a new tractor which she fulfilled and handed over to the council executive in an open ceremony that attracted locals in Buyende.
“I promised to lobby for you a new tractor and I have now fulfilled, I hope it will be used accordingly for the benefit of this community,” she said
At the event, she handed over a brand-new tractor to the leaders of the town council.
Previously, the costs of farming had gone high in Irudu town council Buyende district because of the breakdown of the tractor used in farming activities. This prompted the town council executives to reach out to the first deputy Prime Minister also area
This event that was held on Kadaga’s first day of the PDM sensitization tour in the Buyenda district also saw the legislator warning the masses about the observing of the SOPs put in place earlier by the Health Ministry because the novel coronavirus has currently evolved in the country.
Since the times of colonialism, the Busoga region championed the whole country in subsistence farming an economic activity that half the population has engaged in up to date. Families traditionally use their land to grow food for their own consumption and also cash crops to earn a living.
In the region, since the 1990s has also engaged in commercial sugarcane production that has made it one of the largest sugar manufacturers in the country contributing to more than 50% of the country’s sugar.
Currently, legislators in the 11th parliament are on a tour in their respective districts to educate the masses about the current government program of investing wealth into the population hence a bottom-up approach to budgeting, aimed at moving national development planning to the grassroots.
Uganda to date has over 100 districts and a total of 10,694 parishes with a population ranging from 450 to 30,000 or more and over 1 trillion shillings was apportioned to it in the just read the budget.
At this event, Kadaga also warned assigned PDM district officers about bribes and not to force people into enterprises that they don’t belong to this opportunity helps all the people of the Busoga region at the lowest administrative levels to identify and assign resources for their own social needs.
“I urge you to be transparent in monitoring during the exercise, and also in full accountability of funds allocated per parish” Kadaga emphasized.
Cash crops like coffee, rice, maize, cassava, cotton, millet, and others are some of those grown in plenty in this Eastern part of Uganda.
