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While Using Shs17m she has been putting aside for months off her monthly salary as both Minister and MP, Lira City Woman MP Jane Ruth Aceng over the weekend distributed colossal sums of money to the different community development groups from her constituency.
The groups which total up to 816 and are all registered and issued with certificates of incorporation by Lira City Council are the one’s which especially women and youths come together to advance their respective development agendas. On realizing the money on the special constituency bank account (where Shs17m had been saved per month) had accumulated into something significant, Aceng directed guys at her constituency office to withdraw it.
A function would later be organized at Lira Primary School where hundreds of people converged to receive the support. Organizers used both Saturday and Monday, which was the independence day, to have the community members converge to meet and receive free money from their MP.
In total, 283 groups were supported with each sharing an average of between Shs500,000 and Shs1,000,000. This is all free. No one will be obliged to pay back. The big ceremony was attended by several political and opinion leaders from Lira City which Aceng represents as Woman MP.
Unlike her opponents who give out such money as loans, over which some will end up going to jail upon failing to pay, Aceng’s is totally free money which voters have understood as a way of giving back to them by their daughter since its them who put her in the MP office in the first place.
The monies received is already being invested to strengthen joint group businesses in things like poultry farming. Some of the beneficiary groups are into catering services and the grants from their beloved MP Jane Aceng will enable them buy plastic chairs which can be rented or hired out to those having functions like parties. In return, the group earns some money which is ploughed back to strengthen their operations.
The weekend windfall is just the latest Aceng has injected into her people. Otherwise, a lot has been impacted since she became Lira City MP in 2021 including Lira Regional Referral Hospital which has rapidly been transformed to look like a 5 star hotel. This has increased the pride of Lira residents and generally those from the entire Lango sub region who now don’t have to travel to Kampala for things like dialysis services among other complex medical conditions.
Aceng’s impactful lobbying, which has made the people of Lango realize the advantages of having an effective Minister, has also seen more health centers either built or elevated besides the PAG Church-owned Health Center 4 which has since been elevated to hospital status. Because of Aceng’s effective lobbying, Lango residents can now access CT scan services at their Lira RRH (which costs much more elsewhere) at just Shs150,000.
As they received free money at Lira Primary School, Lira City residents vowed to work towards ensuring that Aceng emerges victorious in her two upcoming political races namely retaining the Woman MP slot and also capturing the position of NRM Chairperson for Northern Uganda.
President Museveni (who famously complained about Ministers from Lango failing to fight poverty in villages as he campaigned for Okello Engola’s son in the Oyam by-elections months back) must be very proud having a development-oriented and selfless Minister like Jane Ruth Aceng who can selflessly part with so much (Shs150m); giving out grants to her people as opposed to profiting from their misery by lending to them on very oppressive terms. More can be seen in pictures from the cash handover events at Lira Primary School over the weekend.
