The state minister for fisheries Hellen Adoa has expressed her dissatisfaction with some financial institutions that are allegedly extorting money from PDM beneficiaries in her constituency.
The minister while in a community Baraza this week attended by the district technical team, the public, and others in Labori sub-county, Pingire county in Serere district where she is the woman MP was shocked to learn how the beneficiaries are extorted before getting funds.
According to some of the beneficiaries who presented their dissatisfaction to the woman MP, they were charged between 10,000 ugx – 13,000 ugx shillings for registration and 20,000 ugx for affidavits on top of the withdrawal charges.
While explaining the alleged fraud, Juliet Ijangolet the area manager for Soroti Finance Trust Bank confirmed that the bank indeed charges the beneficiaries before getting funds.
According to her, the bank charges 10,000 ugx for account opening, 3,000 ugx for passports and 20,000 for affidavits for clients whose signatures failed to match with those in their national IDs.
Some of the members of the public pleaded to the minister to look into the matter before some of them were also charged like their colleagues.
The minister while addressing the media said that the locals have learned about the program although more sensitization is needed as there are challenges of some people fixing names of their relatives leaving out those who are very poor.
"The issue of the bank is clear, they are saying that they were collecting 20,000 ugx for swearing affidavits, according to them those who could not sign correctly were told to pay the money to the lawyers", minister Adoa said.
She further explained that every bank would use their own lawyers since they came up with an MOU with the government rather than making beneficiaries pay for affidavits.
