By: Melanie Aanyu

The government has announced a five billion Shillings grant for elderly persons aged 60 to 79 years who are not beneficiaries of the Social Assistance Grant for Empowerment (SAGE) program. The new grant will target 1,896,190 people.

This was revealed by Minister of State for Elderly Affairs, Dominic Mafwabi Gidudu while addressing journalists at the Media Center yesterday(Wednesday)28-sept-22.

Gidudu said that the grant will target eldery persons who are out of business yet are still productive.

Charles Isabirye, the Chairperson of the National Council for older persons in Uganda said that older persons can access the grant in groups of 5 to 10 people and each group will be given five million shillings which they can channel into ventures like farming, poultry and others.

He also said that the groups have to come up with the concept of what they want to do and then make an application for funding which will be verified from the village up to the district level.

In 2010, the government started the SAGE program that supports older persons above the age of 80 to enable them to meet some basic needs. Each beneficiary is entitled to 25,000 shillings each month.