Security intelligence has unearthed how managers of the regional industrial hub, a Presidential Initiative to Skill Program, are extorting money from youths to benefit from the program.
At Wandegeya Industrial Hub in Kampala, according to intelligence sources, its alleged that the managers are receiving sum of fifty thousand shilings and above from each participant as registration or booking fee in order to be admitted to the program.
A woman whose name has been withheld by the security intelligence to avoid jeopardizing the investigation claimed she was denied a chance to register her daughter just because she had failed to pay fifty thousand shillings, which they had demanded from Wandegeya Hub.
“We arrived at the northern wing, Wandegeya market, where the registration was taking place, by 5:30 a.m. By the time the registration process began, we had been passed by a number of people who the registration authorities kept putting in front of her and had become nearly 100th in the When we inquired, they said we hadn’t paid ‘booking fees’, which was why she was being moved back,” she narrated.
I was in so much shock because I was early, but people who came hours after me were put in front of me. I didn’t understand what was happening until they asked me for a booking fee, she stated.
“I hadn’t carried that amount of money because I didn’t know it was needed, and honestly, I didn’t have it.” “The first time I brought my daughter, we weren’t asked for this money,” she stated.
At the Kigowa Catholic Church hub in Kampala, several would-be beneficiaries had allegedly been turned away by the managers for not paying Ugx 50,000 for registration.
Andrew Mugisha said he was turned away along with several youths after they failed to pay the Shs 50,000 wanted by the officials.
“At this point, I only had money for transport back home; I couldn’t afford to pay this hefty amount of money and didn’t get the card.” “Those who paid got the card, and the rest of us were sent back home with nothing,” he said.
In some centers across the country, for you to benefit from the program, you must have been taken by someone who is a known NRM member.
President Yoweri K. Museveni set up the Skilling Initiative with the aim of pulling underprivileged youth out of poverty and into the money-making economy.
The centers train youth in carpentry, fabrication and welding, shoe-making, embroidery, tailoring, weaving, hairdressing, knitting, baking, crafts, and stone-cutting. In addition, there are plans to introduce financial literacy to the youth so they can manage their enterprises better.
The program has so far trained and funded 14,448 youth and 36,300 women. The training is free of charge and requires no prior educational qualifications; local languages are used for instruction.
