Arua City Leaders Want List of COVID-19 Relief Beneficiaries Revised
Written by admin on July 8, 2021
Arua City authorities have raised concern about the huge gap in the proposed number of COVID-19 Relief Fund Beneficiary numbers for the two divisions there. A circular received by the Town City Clerk’s office on Wednesday shows that only 3,877 people are listed to benefit from the COVID-19 relief fund amounting to Shillings 387 Million.
This is about half of the 7,762 vulnerable people registered by the City Authorities by Wednesday afternoon. Boda boda alone are over 4,000. The leaders expressed their discontent in a meeting with Grace Kwiwucwiny, the Minister for Northern Uganda and Joyce Moriku, the Primary Education State Minister on Wednesday evening.
According to the 2014 National Population and Housing Census statistics from UBOS, the then Arua Municipality, and now Central Division has 10,202 households while Ayivu County, now a division comprises 46,380 people. Sam Nyakua, the Mayor Arua City wondered about the criteria used to determine the number of COVID-19 relief beneficiaries.
He demanded that the current figures for Ayivu Division be included.
Initially, the Gender, Labor and Social Development Ministry and Office of the Prime Minister had planned to disburse the funds today. However, the exercise has been delayed for a week to allow for the verification and display of the lists.
Some of the targeted beneficiaries are Taxi and Special hire drivers, wheelbarrow pushers, artists, bouncers and Private School teachers whose income has been affected by the lockdown.
