By Leonard Kamugisha Akida,
MBARARA CITY
Largely, unemployed Graduates are increasingly vulnerable to manipulation from established organisations and individuals on whom they depend on to come to the money economy.
These manipulation schemes result into an immense expenditure of time and meagre resources on the part of graduates who foot stationery, commute long distances to attend interviews, trainings at organisations’ designated training centres. They are later reduced to becoming the “water carriers” for self-seeking organisations who pocket largesums of money inform of donations and grants from donor companies.
In Mbarara City, southwest Uganda, the situation is little more than this after an Associate Professor Alex B Ariho reportedly manipulated a group of poor youth from Mbarara City and metropolitan peri-urban centres who he enrolled in a ghost project to allegedly pocket donor funds.
Anonymous graduates who spoke to this Parrots Media said that the professor through his Excel Hort Consultant Limited a subsidiary of Excel Hort Consult Agribusiness Incubator (ECHAI) recruited a number of fresh graduates in February for mentorship in different enterprises such as poultry, cuni-culture, hort-culture and Aqua-culture promising extend financial support to each mentee on completion of the training.
¶We were recruited by ECHAI creating Sustainable Youth Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Through Urban Funding (SYMUF) project and received mentorship training on four enterprises like keeping domesticated birds, fish farming, fruit and vegetables farming, and rabbits keeping,¶ source narrated ¶During this period, we were asked to pay between shillings 10,000 and 20,000 to open up individual accounts in equity bank through which the promised start up capital would be wired after the training¶
According to the victims, they were informed that organisation in collaboration with the bank would support the implementation of the incubation projects with support from other partners.
The youth who say they have been disillusioned say since the completion of the project, no single amount of money has been deposited on their accounts and the organisation is not giving them satisfactory communication.
¶Whenever we attempt to inquire from the project coordinator, our inquiries fall in a deaf ear saying that he has no any communication from his boss (Prof. Ariho),¶ said another youth who preferred anonymity.
The youth further allege that Prof. Ariho had received an estimated 5bn from African Development Bank (ADB) meant for the project funding but only received lunch facilation and daily transport worth Shs10,000 of the estimated $500 facilitation fee per trainee during the training.
When this publication contacted the Project Coordinator Sam Gaadi Tukamushaba, he declined to comment on the matter.
The multinational SYMUF project was inaugurated in 2022, to create jobs and improve livelihoods for youth in three African countries of DRC, Nigeria and Uganda.
In a statement issued by Ezekiel Chumwuemeka, the AfDB Group Nigeria country Department, the project targeted farmers who are attracted in Urban farming.
The project received 937,000 dollars in grant funding from the Fund for African Private Sector Assistance, a multi-donor trust fund managed by AfDB.
In Uganda, the project was partnering with the African Agribusiness Incubation Network, an incubation centre funded by Prof. Ariho.
The youth however, are accusing Ariho of diverting the project funds for his personal interests than helping them to overcome incubation start-up and management challenges as he had pledged.
Attempts to speak to Prof. Ariho for comments regarding the allegations raised against him were futile.
