WE NEED FINANCIAL LITERACY TO IMPLEMENT GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS IN OUR AREA, ZOMBO RESIDENTS CRY OUT

By Godwin Abedican

Zombo

The failure of government programs towards poverty alleviation in Alangi Sub-County, Zombo district has been highly attributed to the government’s failure to enhance the capacity of people or intended beneficiaries in line with financial discipline and literacy.

The government in the past has had programs such as the NUSAF, youth livelihood, EMYOOGA and others whose successes were minimal, and the currently being implemented Parish Development Model (PDM) also has its success still hanging in balance.

On Monday 10th July 2023, Nile Microfinance Arua, organized a community financial literacy training at Alangi Sub County Headquarters, to enlighten the residents about how to be financially disciplined so as to reap the fruits of monies that they make as well as obtain benefits from government monies under the different government programs.

The training attended by business men and women and locals in the area was meant to understand how much the people in the area have in terms of financial literacy out of which indications were that such trainings have never been given to the people, a very huge contributing factor to failure of government programs among the people.

Sharon Ajaruva a resident of Sonzi village in Alangi Sub County, who attended the training says, the government continues to inject more money in the youth and businesses in the area but they lack financial training or literacy.

According to her, many people have failed to use the monies they receive and fail to achieve anything with some ending up losing their properties during recoveries while some have even left the village due to pressure on them to refund the monies, leading to failures in these programs.

Alex Edrungi Thorloka, the chairperson of the business community of Alangi Sub County appreciates the initiative taken by Nile Microfinance saying, this kind of training if introduced by the government will change people’s mindset about government programs. “This is a good training because I have seen that people are supposed to be trained before they go into what they are doing. The training we have got and what the facilitators say is very encouraging and makes us to work hard. This training has opened up my mind and at least I have topped up my knowledge from what I knew before” Edrungi said.

He says since keeping money and handling it is difficult the best the government could do is to use institutions like Nile Microfinance to educate the people before being given monies. “By what Nile Microfinance has done, I know there will be mindset changes to do things in the right way because where there is no training, people cannot and have not been doing the right things. We can see this with the PDM. Though the money has been given, we even dot now to who the monies have been given, but there was no training, I know people are going to misuse that money,” he added.

Mr. Alex Edrungi Thorloka, Alangi sub county business community chairperson during an interview

According to Jackson Meova, the LC3 chairperson Alangi Sub County, this lack of information and financial literacy is one of the reasons for the very high poverty levels in his community. “Before this training, I was very raw in managing my finance, but I want to say I have become the person who will first save and then spend. And I have seen, we are failing simply because of such knowledge. The knowledge is not there in us. That’s why you see us very poor. People are going to change with trainings if the initiatives can be provided. To me maybe, this should have happened the other time before PDM, it was going to help us a lot with the training given by the production team there was going to be an amalgamation where it would make a very strong knowledge in our people,” Meova said.   

Alex Matua the managing director Nile microfinance shows a book to participants

Alex Matua the managing director Nile microfinance, encourages the community to look at both short term and long term investments out of the benefits they get from their businesses and  government programs so as to have a better life in future. “You will find that there are some pieces of land we don’t use. If you have more than 3 acres of land, plant in an acre some trees because that is an investment you are going to leave and it grows. When those trees in an acre are ready after around 10 years, that tree is ready for harvest and you get money. We must think beyond this issue of I want to eat fast. We don’t plan now, we shall start cursing because we start fighting with our children,” Matua appealed.

Meanwhile, Oleru Grace, the district councilor representing Kangu and Alangi sub counties who doubles as the Vice Chairperson Zombo district the district says giving priority to women in such trainings as she calls for an extension of such throughout the district.

 
Zombo district vice chairperson at the training

The government has been doing a lot in my community. There are many government programs like EMYOGA where many people especially women have been involved. After getting these monies from the government, they do the same mistakes. In fact from my own observation, this training is going to help a lot in my community. My women are already empowered and initially, they didn’t have such trainings on financial literacy and management. Everything is about sensitization and mobilization and I believe if this training is conducted all over the district with proper sensitization and mobilization a lot can change because such trainings are of great importance.  
 
This training was organized by Nile Microfinance under the theme the illiterates of the 21st century will no longer be those who cannot learn unlearn and relearn.

COVER PHOTO: Jonah Meova, Alangi sub county chairperson stressing a point during the training By Godwin Abedican