By Mulengera ReportersOn Wednesday, close to 1,000 key mobilizers from all the villages making up Kampala City or district were hosted to a closed campaign planning meeting at the Nakasero State House. Coordinated by a group of State House assistants working under Senior Presidential Advisor Moses Byaruhanga’s close supervision, the meeting was held in one of the open spaces next to the compound of the famous Okello House. This letting of so many people into the Nakasero State Lodge enclosure showed the extent to which Museveni handlers at State House are determined to overlook old access restrictions in order to increase the big man’s re-election chances come voting day 15th January 2026. The mobilizers who assembled to listen to guidance from Moses Byaruhanga, CEC member Salim Uhuru (who is also the Kampala Central Mayor) were categorized as PDM overseers based in each of the more than 800 villages or cells scattered in the 100 parishes which make up Kampala. This structure was created for the purpose of amplifying mobilization of political support and votes for Gen Museveni, leveraging on the political capital the big man from Rwakitura is entitled to reap from the trillions his current administration has invested in low-income Ugandans in especially Kampala where the opposition keeps having upper hand largely because Museveni’s achievements and life-changing interventions are never adequately and deliberately explained and publicized to the urban poor for whom they are meant. These PDM oversees are also the volunteers through whom State House gets to spy and know about people and households which have benefited from PDM, regardless of party affiliation, and how/what they subsequently think about Gen Museveni and NRM’s suitability to continue ruling Uganda.Supervised, trained, enumerated and facilitated by State House, these guys are different from the PDM coordinators and SACCO leaders who are based at parish level and are under the Ministry of Local Government. WAR ON MONEY LENDERS:During the event, the guests listened to speeches from key leaders and were also permitted to ask questions, share on the challenges and propose some way forward on how things can be done better. One of the leaders who spoke was Moses Byaruhanga, the long-serving Museveni re-election campaign strategist who has been part of every election effort since 2001. Actually, Byaruhanga was CEC member Salim Uhuru’s co-chief guest at the Wednesday meeting. The attendees were also equipped with talking points to keep using as they canvass for re-election support for Gen Museveni and other ruling NRM candidates. Each one of these PDM village-based overseers has been tasked with verifiably delivering at least 20 votes from the respective village they are in charge of (these are different from the NRM village structure of 30 officials per village). Responding to some of the feedback hat came from the audience, Byaruhanga agreed with all earlier speakers who unanimously thanked Museveni for the initiative and celebrated PDM as the best and so far, the most impactful wealth creation program intervention for Kampala in the last 40 years Gen Museveni has been President. Byaruhanga, who has thickly been involved in many such interventions in especially Kampala, observed that even all the others had been good and well-intentioned, with the President and government doing their part and acting in good faith, except that dishonest SACCO leaders had kept eating the money meant to help ordinary poor people who had been put under their care and control. He gave the example of MSC-implemented Emyooga under which he said over Shs20bn had so far been released by government and invested in Kampala. However, Byaruhanga said it was regrettable the audit he and others subsequently conducted revealed that of the Shs20bn invested in Kampala thus far, only Shs10bn could be accounted for.The other Shs10bn had been embezzled and eaten by leaders through creating ghost SACCOs and ghost beneficiaries. He said when they scrutinized the literature that such SACCO leaders had submitted, it was realized that in many cases a SACCO member would be advanced Shs200,000 under the Emyooga and officials leading such SACCOs would record Shs2m in the official accountability documents. Saying this was unacceptable theft by SACCO leaders and not even MSC officials, Byaruhanga said President Museveni had been disappointed and betrayed for too long by such corrupt actors who he accused of abusively using SACCO leadership positions to introduce bureaucratic and extortionist requirements, which result into majority of the intended beneficiaries getting alienated. He implored fellow leaders present to sensitize people signing up to access PDM money to ensure that President Museveni doesn’t once again end up a very disappointed man. Earlier speakers like Uhuru and Madina Nsereko had thanked Museveni for accepting to enlarge the PDM monies allocated to parishes in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area districts of Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono from mere Shs100m annually to Shs300m, which Byaruhanga said there was capacity to enlarge even further provided the pioneer PDM beneficiaries do well, appropriately invest/use the money and subsequently pay it back. He added that such good performance would appease Museveni who would generously respond by ordering even more PDM monies being invested in Kampala parishes. Byaruhanga also agreed with Madina Nsereko who implored Kampalans to stop acting selfishly by benefiting from only one intervention so that others can also have the chance to borrow. Nsereko had castigated some Kampalans who selfishly borrow or benefit from Emyooga, the Ghetto funds and at the same time insist on benefiting under PDM too yet there are many other potential borrowers who qualify. Moses Byaruhanga revealed that being the generous Jjaaja mwami and father of the nation he has always been, Gen Museveni had created many alternative interventions and avenues through which every Kampalan ought to access affordable credit; with a two-year repayment period and at an interest rate of not more than 8%. He cited Katale loan and the Boda loan as some of the avenues through which women and youth or even PWDs in Kampala can access government financial support even if they end up not being covered under PDM, which many speakers claimed was unprecedented generosity by government to its people in any part of the world. Byaruhanga said the President directed the Finance Ministry to invest money in the Boda loan because he realized that extortionist money lenders were exploiting Boda riders by making them pay up to Shs12m for one bike in a period of just two years. He explained that through the Boda loan, riders who in most cases happen to be youths can access cheap credit where they end up being charged as low as 8% in interest, repayable in at least two years. Byaruhanga said this is great improvement compared to the old system of extortionist money lenders. The State House senior staffer also made reference to Katale loan, whose details he said were agreed upon between him and the Microfinance Support Centre managers during a Tuesday meeting that State House prompted PSST Ramathan Goobi to organize at the Finance Ministry on Tuesday. Byaruhanga revealed that during the meeting, the MSC managers agreed to avail Shs10bn to serve as the Katale loan pioneer investment that will be piloted and initially rolled out in 6 Kampala City markets. Byaruhanga, who is playing a key role in Museveni’s 2026 re-election campaign that is ongoing, revealed these to include Owino, Kalerwe, Nakasero, Busega, Nakawa and Gaba markets. He said that in each of these markets, the MSC is going to operate an office located within the market that will support and facilitate the rolling out of the Katale loan’s piloting phase. “We have strictly asked them to stop using too much English and there won’t be any paper work involved because we have realised such requirements actually alienate people and fail these interventions by the President. Why ask people to fill a form or even first have a bank account? We have come to the conclusion that all those aren’t necessary. All we need is someone being a member or vendor in that market and belongs to a group whose members and leaders know him or her, and can commit themselves to helping MSC to enforce the recovery of the money so that others can also borrow.”Byaruhanga said that membership to such groups and being identifiable by colleagues operating in that same market should be enough to qualify one to borrow the money at just 8% interest per annum and going ahead to pay back within a maximum of just two years.He gave the example of a kibanda/charcoal woman who just needs basic money to buy a few sacks of charcoal from a lorry or Fuso to restock, sell it, make some profit and be able to pay back the group money for others to also borrow. He said there are many informal sector trading activities which low-income Kampalans can comfortably do, with support of capital from their government, without requiring them to first fill a form or open a bank account. He said they had realized many urban poor in Kampala and other cities just want to move on with their lives and can even take their entire life without ever interacting with the bank. “This Shs10bn is done and you are going to have it soon under Katale loan in those 6 pilot markets. It will be enlarged to other markets and all that has to happen is for you to go and sensitize our people about such money being available. The President wants them to borrow and develop and doesn’t want to hear of those extortionist money lenders marginalizing his people in any of those KCCA markets anymore. All the borrowers have to do to avoid embarrassing I and the Preside is to pay back the money on time so that others can also borrow. That’s all. I implore each one of you to ensure that I don’t end up being embarrassed because those people of the MSC will be saying ‘you were wrong to have pushed us to diminish on the paper work and just give out the money.’ That will be my fate if that Katale loan initiative fails. Otherwise, we can all succeed and that will be the President’s happiness because he wants all his people to overcome poverty. Just help me and make sure all these interventions succeed, otherwise it will be hard for me to face the President once such interventions don’t succeed simply because of dishonesty of the individual borrowers.” Byaruhanga made it clear that the MSC managers had been implored to require all their officers and staff who will be involved in the administration of the katale loan to diminish on the use of too much English language when dealing the President’s people, the urban poor, who State House has since discovered become disinterested and lose appetite to participate in such interventions because they have phobia towards too much English being used or imposed on them. All this seemed to excite many attendees at the Wednesday meeting. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).