Ancient Chinese strategist Lao Tzu taught – a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. President Museveni’s journey has by no means been an easy one. Each stage of his struggle is accentuated by his desire to cause the socio-economic transformation of Uganda and redeem our ancient continent from the shackles that neo-colonialism places on it.
Luweero’s thickets, forests, streams and rivers could not and did not deter him and the National Resistance Army fighters from following every single step forward with another, crafting their ideology into what, in my view, remains the best political manifesto out of Africa. They called it the 10 points programme and to this day, this manifesto is the conditio sine qua non of the NRM.
Indeed, the people of Uganda beginning on February 6th, 1981 turned to the NRM in increasing numbers. “During the concealment phase” Gen. David Sejjusa narrates, “civilians settled us, they put us in their houses, they gathered intelligence, they carried out renaissance missions for us to acquire small arms and so on.”He then concludes, “If we didn’t have the population on our side then there would be no NRA/UPDF and certainly no NRM.”
Today, despite the many short comings, the civilians of Uganda continue to demonstrate their support of President Museveni and the NRM. Many of these civilians are now the target of the Parish Development Model (PDM), a 7 pillar strategy hailed as the “last mile” to the historical mission of socio-economic transformation.
By supporting the NRM and President Museveni, as Minister Raphael Magyezi reminded us, we the people of Uganda expect our government to be proactive and be at the forefront of our long march to realise universal socio-economic transformation.
Of course, the best national economic programs and strategies are those that rely on accurate data sets to inform their design, implementation, and assessment. The Parish Development Model is one such data-driven government strategy.
Data-driven because Uganda is a country of 10,594 Parishes, each of which is projected to receive Ugx 100m each year for PDM, benefiting more than 176,000 PDM Special Enterprise groups spread over more than 10,794 Savings and Credit Cooperatives (SACCOS).
It is the scale of these numbers that necessitated the Ministry of Information, Communication Technologies, and National Guidance (MoICT&NG) be at the forefront of developing the Parish Development Management Information System (PDMIS). PDMIS allows key PDM Administration personnel to quickly access and analyse data, identify processes that need improvement, and create strategies that lead to optimal PDM operations. It also improves information exchange at Parish, district, and national levels.
According to Mr. Peter Ogule – PDM Pillar Manager at MoICT&NG, using PDMIS, “at least Ugx 1,383 Tr has been disbursed to 874,746 beneficiaries in 832,000 households.”He further contends that the “government can with at least 90% efficiency track particular details of each beneficiary such as the name and location of the PDM enterprise, sex of recipient, age of the recipient, etc.”
But PDMIS is nothing if the Chief Administrative Officers, Town Clerks, and Parish Chiefs are, for lack of requisite equipment, unable to access it. Therefore, the Ministry of ICT&NG has procured 140 laptops. Each district will, for now, receive one laptop which will be in the custody of the Chief Administrative Officer.
Plans to equip all town clerks are already underway and it is expected that in the coming FY, they too will receive laptops/tablets.
Yes, as Local Government Minister Raphael Magyezi reminded us at the Laptop handover ceremony, although PDM has faced many challenges, the road ahead remains an optimistic one. It might be rocky, but surely, it feels good to me.
The writer is an African Optimist.
On X: @BesiAndrew
