Museveni reneges on sanitary pads for girls promise

THE UGANDAN government has reneged on an earlier election campaign promise to provide sanitary pads to schoolgirls “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 region in 2015. The promise was supposed to be effected in the 2017/2018 financial year budget of $780 million (about R10 billion), 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 parliamentary 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, 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. They also 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 increase in fees and were planning to reissue those guidelines. – ANA