The State Minister for Micro Finance, Harunah Kyeyune Kasolo has alleyed concerns among low income earners that the government has no plans to close the Emyooga even after elections as has been alleged.
While addressing journalists on Thursday at the Uganda Media Centre on the fate of the presidential initiative on wealth and Job Creation program popularly know
as Emyooga, Kasolo refuted allegations that Emyooga was a voter winner without a future in post-2021 Uganda.
“Emyooga isn’t a political program, in fact politics ended on Wednesday but government programs must continue and must be beneficial to all Ugandans irrespective of their political affiliations,” said Kasolo.
“Those who thought that the program had come to aid NRM to attain votes, please here we are disproving you and want to appeal to all Ugandans to tap and penetrate into this program,” he added.
Urges losers to join hands with victors
In this aspect, the minister urged all those that lost in the recently concluded elections to concede defeat and rally behind those that emerged victors citing that Ugandans deserve effective service delivery and that this can’t be achieved without joint collaboration irrespective of difference in political ideologies.
“If you were defeated rally behind someone who defeated you and we move on because at the end of the day Uganda is bigger than all of us,” he said.
On the progress of the emyooga initiative, Kasolo noted that UGX One Hundred Eighty Four Billion, Eight Hundreds Seventy Million has already been disbursed by the Microfinance Support Centre.
He further notes that a number of leaders have been trained to ensure effectiveness of the program.
” As a result, 247,353 leaders of associations and 2,900 SACCO leaders have been trained in basic records management, governance for effective SACCO operations,” he said.
He further noted that the Micro finance support centre has successfully trained a total of 2,809 technical district officers and equipped them with the skills and content necessary to cascade training of Emyooga.
The Minister however urged Members of Emyooga SACCOs not to divide money and split but they should instead keep on saving for future investment.
The Emyooga program according to the Kasolo targets to boost 18 SACCOs per subcounty in Kampala and Wakiso as well as 18 SACCOs per constituency in other distrcts.
