It is important to have a budget, says expert

The Business Lecturer Mountains of the Moon University, Mr. Mawenu Vicent has appealed local citizens especially in the Rwenzori Region to have a budget to enable them reduce wasteful expenditure and hence improve on their livelihoods.

“It’s important to have a budget, it’s also important to have the discipline to stick to your budget because it will assist you control wasteful spending. It’s also important for people to identify and plan for their basic necessities of life early like feeding, clothing, housing, etc so that they can be able to fulfill them in time to have a better life.” Said Mawenu.

A sample of the Uganda Currency (UGX 50,000)

Mawenu was discussing a topic titled, “personal financial management” on Sunday, 2^nd November, 2014 at the Listeners Forum live radio discussion on Better FM, Fort Portal which is supported by Toro Development Network (ToroDev).

The discussion which was also attended by Ms. Kenema Revocate – a researcher on financial literacy issues who appealed to the local citizens to develop a culture of saving to fight poverty, “we need to instill in ourselves a culture of saving and we don’t need to start with a lot of money for instance if you have UGX 10,000, you can start by saving UGX 2,000 and go on increasing because one by one makes a bundle.” Said Revocate.

Revocate further highlighted that the culture of saving in Uganda is still very low which has led to increased poverty in the country, “recent research conducted indicates that only 17 percent of the Uganda population keep their money in banks supervised by Bank of Uganda, 60 percent keep their money in their homes for instance under their mattresses which is not healthy and the excuse they always give for not saving is because they are poor, if they are poor then where do they get money to meet their basic necessities of life?.” Said Revocate.

To reduce poverty especially in the rural areas of Uganda, ToroDev in partnership with Bank of Uganda, GIZ and Mountains of the Moon University, Fort Portal has rolled out two live radio discussions on financial literacy every month of Hits FM and Better FM.

During the live radio discussions, topics on personal financial management, savings, investments, loans, planning for retirement, insurance, etc will be discussed and local citizens, leaders and experts on financial literacy will be participating in the discussions.