You can move ‘as the crow flies’: taking a direct route to a place, regardless of the obstacles, choosing to face them and sort them out. Or you can take a ‘panya route’: the route taken by rats – a shortcut that evades established procedures, safeguards, or institutional controls. It’s a contrast between directness and circumlocution. Shortcuts are dangerous; we’ve always been told. That’s what comes to the rational mind after hearing Uganda’s Ministry of Finance lament that people who took loans under the Parish Development Model (PDM) are not paying back as expected.
According to the Ministry of Finance’s September 16 update, the government had capitalised the fund with Shs4.317 trillion, reaching approximately 3.57 million beneficiaries through 10,589 Saccos. A quick take: Teso Sub-region got Shs77b and has paid back just Shs86m, which is 0.11 percent. Nakaseke District got Shs6.46b and has paid back Shs28.2m, which is 0.44 percent. And I just fell in love with Mityana District: they got Shs8b and have paid back a grand total of Shs250,000 (0.003 percent). Long story short, we can safely extrapolate that, as usual, Ugandans will not pay that money.