The Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, has urged leaders in Busoga to support their communities to embrace government skilling programmes that are aimed at fighting poverty.
Kadaga made these remarks at the Skills Development Facility Workshop organised by Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU) on May 28, 2018 at Hotel Africana, Kampala.
The Speaker was reacting to a presentation by the Executive Director of Private Sector Foundation (PSFU), Gideon Bagadawa who cited low levels of adoption of the Skills Development Facility (SDF) in Busoga region.
SDF is part of the Uganda Skills Development Project funded by the World Bank, which aims at promoting employer-led short term training in order to address prevailing skills imbalances and shortages in Uganda.
Kadaga said that the SDF project would help fight the high unemployment rates in Busoga region.
“Have you taken time to look at the structure of your population and how many people idle around because they have nothing to do?” She asked. She urged people in the region to grow Matooke instead of travelling to western Uganda looking for the same.
She urged national legislators from the region to help train communities in entrepreneurial and financial management. “We are going to keep being overwhelmed as leaders if we do not energize these people to work hard to emancipate themselves financially,” she said.
Mr Badagawa said that only One billion Shillings had been granted to businesses and groups in Busoga out of US $21 million (about Shs77.7 billion) disbursed throughout the country.
He urged communities and groups in the region to get organised so that they benefit more from the project. “They need to form unions, register and establish themselves as formalised entities,” he said.
Ms Ruth Musoke, the Project Manager SDF said that the programme aims at skilling people across all sectors in the economy.
