Kampala, Uganda — The low uptake of scholarships introduced to Uganda has develop into a significant fear to legislators at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC – Central Government).

A evaluate of scholarships introduced to Uganda within the final 3 years laid naked that out of 280 scholarship slots supplied, handiest 162 are crammed, leading to an underneath absorption of 42 in line with cent.

While assembly the technical workforce from the Ministry of Education and Sports led by way of the Permanent Secretary, Ketty Lamaro, on Thursday, 15 December 2022 at the audit record for the monetary yr ended 30 June 2021, MPs requested for right kind control of each executive and bilateral scholarships for complete absorption to maximize advantages.

“One of the hindrances on [bilateral] scholarships is when the beneficiaries are asked to pay for their own accommodation or medical care [which they cannot afford]. The education ministry needs to improve on their budgeting to cater for all these,” stated Tororo South MP, Fredrick Angura.

The everlasting secretary blamed this on budgetary cuts and inadequacies due to the hot COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarah Opendi, Tororo District Woman Representative suggested the ministry to fast-track the method of creating a scholarship coverage to deal with gaps within the control of scholarships as steered by way of the Auditor General.

“You claim to be giving out scholarships, but where are these adverts put? People are being asked to pay money in exchange for scholarships. We need a policy which should come before the law and once the law is out then we shall need guidelines to operationalise the law. So people [at the ministry] are sleeping on the job,” Opendi stated.