Govt Defends Relief Cash Dole-out
Regardless of how much the recent relief cash disbursement has been criticized, the government has continued to boast of its effectiveness.
To date, the Ministry of Gender is yet to sort out close to 9000 beneficiaries whose registration details had errors.
However, Henry Musasizi, the State Minister for Finance has defended the exercise as swift and effective compared to donating foodstuff through contractors.
The state minister for finance says it’s easier and faster to distribute cash to vulnerable Ugandans.
Musasizi was appearing before a joint meeting of the Public Accounts and the Local Government committees of Parliament on Wednesday.
The committee was tasked with reviewing the lists of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 cash that PM Nabbanja presented to the August house.
Musasizi told both committees that distributing cash was like eating a piece of cake.
He said ”So this was what informed the decision, We still believe if the beneficiaries are the right ones, Mr. Chairman, then it is very easy to distribute cash, you just press a button and 500 people receive the money, instead of taking 3 months or more and involving all Ministers and others in food distribution.’‘
Musasizi insists that as compared to the challenges faced in the relief food distribution exercise during the 2020 national lockdown, this was simpler and gave people options to use the money their way
He explained;” We wanted to give consumer choice, we give you Shs100,000, you buy what you want, rather than giving you Posho, beans, ETC, we give you Shs 100,000 if you want meat you buy it, if you want Chappati, you buy it, in that way we thought it would be much better than giving these items on top of them being expensive and money going to contractors.
Musasizi, says that the Ministry of Finance approved COVID-19 emergency funding totaling Shs 53.5 billion and tasked to the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development.
In a letter dated July 2, 2021, they asked the Gender ministry to formally submit a request and a work plan for the interventions to be undertaken.
He states that the government spent a whopping 2.854 billion Shillings on administrative costs to send COVID-19 relief cash to vulnerable Ugandans.
Administrative costs partly include; mobile money transfer costs,50.645 billion Shillings was transferred to the Ministry of Gender account in Post Bank to facilitate direct transfers to the beneficiaries.
Govt Defends Relief Cash Dole-out
Ojara Martin Mapenduzi, the Chairperson of the Local Government Accounts Committee however questioned whether this some was cheaper than the previous food distribution process.
He demanded a breakdown of the costs;”2.8 billion, was spent on administrative expenditure including mobile money transfer cost, can you try to be specific and give us a breakdown, how much went on the mobile money transfer cost and how much went on other administrative expenditure, but also the other question is, looking at the food distribution exercise compared to this one, how much did you spend on administrative expenditure”.
Musasizi appealed to the Committees to give him more time and it was resolved he returns next week on Wednesday to provide details of the administrative costs in writing.
Under the initiative, the government has been distributing 100,000 Shillings to selected people classified as vulnerable during the 42-day lockdown which ended on Friday.
501,107 beneficiaries were identified from groups of people that depend on daily earnings in Kampala, all Cities, and Municipalities.
