Ugandan government goes back on on sanitary pad promise

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Ugandan government goes back on on sanitary pad promise

4:50 CAT | 17 Feb 2017

Reuters (File photo) / Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

The Ugandan government has reneged on an earlier election campaign promise to provide sanitary pads to school girls “so that they did not run out of school when their menstrual periods start”.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni made the promise while campaigning in Uganda’s Lango sub-region in 2015.

The promise was supposed to be effected in the 2017/2018 financial year budget in which the sector had been allocated Shs2.8trillion (approximately $781 million), the Ugandan Daily Monitor reported.

Instead the large chunk of money will go towards the wages of teachers and staff across the country.

Museveni’s wife Janet, who serves as education minister, appeared before the Parliament’s Education Committee explaining that the funds were simply not available to finance her husband’s 2015 pledge.

“I want you all to understand that we have not got the funding for this in our budget yet,” she told the MPs on the committee, before adding that if more funds became available the government would consider partially funding the earlier pledge.

The legislators, however, expressed displeasure during the four-hour meeting on what they called the government’s tendency to under fund the education sector.

The parliamentarians further raised concerns over a hike in educational fees, alleging this would lead to competing social classes where one class goes to the best schools and the other class can’t afford education at all.

In response, Alex Kakooza, the ministry’s permanent secretary, said they would not encourage an increment in fees and were planning to reissue those guidelines.

Despite Kakooza’s comments the education ministry has approved a rise in school fees in line with a rise in the cost of living but said the rise would be reasonable.

Source: African News Agency