Government has pushed the day for the vulnerable persons hit by lockdown to start receiving the funds to Thursday July 8.
The Minister for Gender, Labor, and Social Development Betty Amongi said that the delay has been caused by a slowdown of local council authorities in collecting the required data.
Payment of the COVID-19 relief funds to the vulnerable groups was supposed to start yesterday on Tuesday July 6, but Amongi revealed that only 21,489 out of 501,000 names of beneficiaries had been received and uploaded onto the ministry’s system.
She said town clerks have been given liberty to verify the collected data before submitting it to the ministry.
The minister also said that another additional legal issue of how to deal, and protect the biodata of the beneficiary between all the agencies also caused the delay.
Prime Minister, Robinah Nabbanja is expected to launch the COVID-19 Relief payment exercise on Thursday, July 8 2021 at 10.00 am.
Shs53 billion was approved by cabinet as package for vulnerable groups with each family receiving Shs100000. Among the identified groups that are set to benefit from the covid relief cash include; barmen, DJs, barmaids, waiters, waitresses, bouncers, gym and restaurant workers, food vendors in tax, bus parks and arcades, musicians, comedians, producers, promoters, salon and massage parlour employees, teachers and support staff in in both government and private schools, car washers, slum dwellers, street vendors, shoe shiners, orphans and vulnerable children among other groups.