Uganda’s flagship poverty eradication programme, the Parish Development Model (PDM), is struggling with deep structural and governance failures despite absorbing trillions of Shillings in public funds, Auditor General Edward Akol has revealed.
In his December audit report to Parliament, Akol notes that although the government has invested 3.38 trillion Shillings in PDM since its launch in the 2021/22 financial year, large sums remain idle, have been diverted, or failed to reach intended beneficiaries.
While the government released 3.26 trillion Shillings to more than 10,500 PDM Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) nationwide, only 2.75 trillion Shillings (84 per cent) had reached households by June 2025.
About 508.6 billion Shillings remained undistributed, while 106 million Shillings withdrawn by 62 SACCOs could not be accounted for. Akol warns that this trend undermines the programme’s core objective of transitioning subsistence households into the money economy and frustrates the Financial Inclusion pillar, which seeks to commercialise agriculture and eradicate poverty.
The audit uncovered widespread abuse at the household level, including 619 beneficiaries implementing ineligible projects, 109 ghost projects, and 263 million Shillings diverted across 52 local governments. Even more concerning, 2,336 households received PDM loans multiple times in clear violation of programme guidelines.
Under the Public Finance Management Act, 2015, accounting officers are required to ensure public funds are applied strictly for approved purposes, a threshold the audit suggests many local governments failed to meet.
Despite the expiry of the grace period for the first cohort of beneficiaries, recovery of the Parish Revolving Fund has barely begun. Only 18,105 beneficiaries in 30 districts had started voluntary repayments, yielding just 9.34 billion Shillings, a fraction of the outstanding funds.
Akol attributes the weak recovery to loans processed outside the Parish Development Management Information System (PDMIS) and poor communication of recovery timelines to SACCO boards. The report adds that preparedness for recovery was inadequate, exposing the programme to sustainability risks.
The audit also highlights a breakdown in the much-touted bottom-up planning approach. Although parishes identified more than 6,100 development priorities, 116 local governments failed to comply with planning guidelines, and most priorities were never integrated into district budgets or work plans. At the national level, coordination gaps persist.
Six of the seven PDM Pillar Working Groups lacked approved implementation plans, while 25 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) failed to align their budgets to PDM priorities, contrary to requirements under NDP IV.
More than 4,600 PDM SACCOs had non-functional committees, and 125 districts failed to submit mandatory quarterly implementation reports, weakening oversight by Parliament and the Office of the Prime Minister.
Technology investments have also delivered limited returns. Of the more than 24,000 tablets distributed, at least 178 were non-functional, others were issued to ineligible users, and thousands of intended users were never trained. Critical PDMIS modules on production, infrastructure, and marketing, central to agricultural value-chain development, remain undeveloped years after rollout.
The findings echo long-standing concerns raised by Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, which has repeatedly warned that failure to implement audit recommendations risks turning PDM into “another expensive social intervention with limited impact.”
Indeed, Akol notes that 37 per cent of prior audit recommendations were not implemented, entrenching recurring weaknesses. Speaker Anita Among, who received the audit report on Thursday, urged the public and civil servants to cooperate with the Office of the Auditor General to promote transparency and ensure services reach citizens at the grassroots.
As the government prepares to scale up PDM under NDP IV (2025-2030), the audit serves as a stark reminder that money alone cannot deliver transformation without discipline, functional systems, and accountability. According to Akol, the government needs to strengthen planning, governance, recovery mechanisms, and system integrity to realise the intended impact of the Parish Development Model.
The Auditor General reviewed 182 Ministries, Departments and Agencies, 85 public corporations and state enterprises, 181 projects, and 145 districts and cities during the audit.
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