The Office of the President through the Manifesto Implementation Unit (MIU) will next week begin field monitoring and validation of government programmes in eastern Uganda.
This is according to Willis Bashaasha, the Director MIU. Bashaasha revealed to this publication that the field exercise is being undertaken in line with the Unit’s core mandate of tracking, reporting and publicizing the performance, progress and challenges of implementation of the Manifesto Commitments and the Strategic guidelines and directives in the different Ministries Departments and Agencies & Local Government.
He added that the field tours are a follow-up on the recent manifesto validation and monitoring retreats where MIU met with the core manifesto implementers at the different Local Governments across the entire country at the National Leadership Institute in Kyankwanzi.
During the retreats, the Local Government leaders met technocrats from key service delivery Ministries, Departments and Agencies, who presented status reports of the government projects undertaken under their respective jurisdictions across the country.
In the same retreat, the MIU technical teams took stock of the programmes presented by the technocrats as well as the feedback from the Local Government leaders regarding the same programmes.
Bashaasha revealed that the manifesto monitoring unit is hitting the field to crosscheck, corroborate and dig up more relevant information regarding these programmes.
“Monitoring entails confirmation of whatever is stated as having been accomplished. It is in this spirit that we are going to the field to confirm whether what was presented is actually what is on ground. In his guidance, H.E. the President emphasized the issue of faultless service delivery and this partly guides our field visits,” Bashaasha said.
The Objective of the exercise:
Bashaasha noted that the broad objective of the field tours is to ensure that the Manifesto commitments are implemented expeditiously to address people’s concerns in a systematic and structured manner for the benefit of Ugandans.
“In this FY 2023/2024, our major focus is on continuous monitoring, validation and evaluation of the Manifesto achievements, including the evaluation of the performance of the PDM and Manifesto. So, after monitoring, validating and evaluating the Manifesto Commitments, we shall electronically store the information gathered and later disseminate the resultant reports so as to empower Ugandans to appreciate the government and manifesto more, on top of entrenching their right to hold their leaders accountable in terms of service delivery,” he said.
Monitoring of the PDM will be high on the agenda since the programme feeds directly into the government’s socioeconomic development agenda for the citizens; having been earmarked in the NRM Manifesto 2021-26 as the strategy/ purpose vehicle for accelerating wealth & job creation to Ugandans, basing at the parish level.
Scope of field tours
According to Bashaasha, the MIU will monitor the PDM and other government projects in 35 districts of eastern Uganda. The MIU team comprises economists and other technical staff who will compile information regarding the progress, challenges and other aspects pertaining to the PDM and other government projects within 10 days. These will interface with local government leaders/manifesto focal persons in those areas and also meet the various contractors executing the different projects to gather targeted information regarding the programmes under their jurisdictions. The teams will then publicize their findings to facilitate remedial action by relevant stakeholders.
