By Wetondo Denis Julius
NAMISINDWA
Youths who benefitted from the Youth Livelihood Program (YLP) in Namisindwa district have blamed Sub County Technocrats for their failure to pay back the funds they received.
The youths who spoke to this reporter on Saturday 13th March 2021 were responding to their imminent arrests by the District Local government.
Earlier Andrew Wabweni, the Namisindwa District Community Development Officer revealed to this website that in 20218/19 F/Y, the district got Shs800M which was given out to 80 youth groups.
He said the groups which were helped to carryout projects such as poultry, boda boda operation, farming, brickmaking have since defaulted on their remittances.
He added that the beneficiaries were told to refund the money since it is a revolving fund in order to give other youths from different groups but up to now they have recovered only 81 million shillings making 10%.
Wabweni also says that as district authorities they are going to arrest those youths as the only solution to recover the money since other groups are waiting to get that same money.
However, Rogers Muwando and Stephen Napoko from Bumali Sub County say that some of their fellow beneficiaries have delayed to pay back the money because sub county technocrats shared the money with them.
Muwando revealed that, for instance, their group was entitled to get six million for onion growing but they got only four million shillings.
“The other Shs2M was taken by our sub county CDO and chief as a bribe before considering our group meaning we can’t pay what we did not get,” Muwando said.
In the same spirit, Emma Bwayo, the Namsinidwa District Youth Councillor Elect urged the district authorities to put aside the idea of arresting youths but look for a solution to the root cause.
“The district should first arrest sub county technocrats who connived with youths to eat the funds through kickbacks and failing to sensitize youths on the importance of paying back the money,” Bwayo said.
