In Kole District, six officials, including the district commercial officer, are in the news when it was claimed that they authorized recipients of monies from the Parish Development Model program using fraudulent means.

Kole Resident District Commissioner Josephine Omara Olili reported that they had detained a number of important suspects to aid the police in their investigation.

Emmanuel Okao, the district commercial officer, Edward Okwee, Richard Elok, Geoffrey Ojok of Acan Pe Kun, Moses Omara of Omolo Farmers, and Umar Ekora, the chairperson for Bed Amwol Group are among those detained and freed on police bond.

On Tuesday, September 12, Olili informed New Vision that Rose Akullo, the chairwoman of Genrwot in Aculbanya ‘A’ in the Aboke Town Council, is one of the suspects and is now at large.

Because it is a government initiative and each person profiled and vetted must receive the money, Olili declared, “I am very serious about this.”

The accused conspired with Okao, stole the names of the intended recipients, slipped the names of their relatives onto the list, and made several payments, according to the district community development officer Lucy Ejura.

According to Ejura, Okwee and Elok got the money many times in the names of eight family members, which was against PDM regulations.

“There were several payments at the time the bank statement was printed. Even though each person was only meant to receive Sh1 million, some recipients received payments three times, she continued.

According to Ejura, all 54 of the district’s parishes received sh100 million, with the exception of just two that received less.

Launched in February 2022, the program calls for the distribution of Sh100 million annually for five years, starting with the fiscal year 2022–2023, to each of Uganda’s 10,594 parishes.

Opio, however, recently asserted that the majority of the district’s registered PDM recipients still have not gotten their cash.

Some residents of Kole District are unhappy that PDM recipients in other districts across the nation have already received their funds, according to Opio.