Dr. Sudi Nangoli, a senior lecturer at Makerere University Business School (MUBS) and a researcher of Project Planning and Management (PPM) has today, May 19, 2023, offered a lecture of opportunity to Resident District Commissioners (RDCs), Resident City Commissioners (RCCs), Deputy Resident City Commissioners (DRCCs), and the District Internal Security Officers (DISOs) on monitoring and evaluation of government programs.

He made the remarks during the two day workshop for Capacity building that was attended by RDCs, RCCs, DRCCs, DRDCs and DISOs from Ankole and Kigezi sub regions in western Uganda at Hotel Triangle in Mbarara City.

While addressing participants, Nangoli revealed the reason why government is concerned with the monitoring and evaluation of its programs since these programs take the biggest percentage on the National Budget.

He said that government programs affect people’s standards of living, the level of national development, and independence of the country, among others.

According to Nangoli, messing up with government programs may lead to low development. He therefore urged the officers to double efforts in monitoring and evaluating government programs to ensure that such programs benefit the intended people at the bottom line of the pyramid.

Nangoli guided the officers to always query whether the program activities have been implemented, resources are available and used timely as planned, whether the outputs resulted into the expected outcome, and whether the government achieved what it wanted to achieve while executing responsibilities they are entrusted with.

He also asked officers to keep a watchful eye on the causes of deviations from the National Budget which include corruption, weak procurement systems, fund diversions, inadequate funding, and the weak oversight by public accountability institutions.

While clarifying on the steps in monitoring public programs, Nangoli advised the RDCs to study work-plans and budgets in order to know whether some activities were planned and budgeted for, in order to analyze financial flows and examine their functionality, and use by population.

This comes at a time when the government is implementing the famous Parish Development Model (PDM) which aims at increasing household incomes and improving the quality life of Ugandans with a specific focus on total transformation of subsistence households.