Accessing and viewing ‘organic media’ – as in videos of people caught in the act and unscripted is among our favorite pass times. We often find them great resources and materials for mentoring and teaching moments.

Take for instance a video clip that is doing the rounds on social media, in which a member of parliament (MP) goes bare knuckle, banging tables, lambasting and calling out a loan shark company, Premier Credit Ltd.

In the video Woman MP representing Terego, Hon. Obigah Rose, who also serves on the Presidential Affairs and Human Rights Committee of Parliament and is the Representative of Greater North to the Parliamentary Forum on Social Protection, grills loan sharks:

“HOW DARE YOU!” she repeatedly calls them out. “How dare you steal from your own? How dare you steal from the poor? Just look at the shoes of this teacher. Look at his shoes. Do you know how much teachers earn? You want to grow rich on him!”

From the video we learn that the teacher took a loan of one million shillings and had already paid back a total of two millions shillings; meaning the loan sharks charged him 100% interest on the loan.

And for some reason the loan sharks refused to give the teacher a printout of his account as proof he had cleared; a situation which was messing up his credit record. Hence, the presence of Hon. Obigah in the loan shark’s office spitting fire.

“I am not your sister. You are a thief,” she berated ‘the boss’ on phone who tried to mollify her with familiarity. “You are a bunch of thieves,” she rebuked,

“You will see the level of madness in me. Prepare yourself to face me in Court. Nonsense, useless thieves,” Hon. Obigah rattled the loan sharks.

“Why did you come to Arua to steal from us? There are so many of these organisations that come here and steal from our people. I will use you, I will punish you to pay for the rest.” Hon. Obigah declared war on loan sharks in her constituency.

Many questions come to mind:

Who is truly responsible for overseeing and controlling the proliferation of loan shark companies countrywide?

How come loan sharks are many and are getting away with charging exorbitant interest?

How come people aren’t rejecting the services of loan sharks in the first place?

The last question, we, at CPAR Uganda, are convinced is partly answered in the reality that many Ugandans possess insufficient financial literacy acumen.

Sadly, a vicious cycle in which financially illiterate parents bequeath their children the consequences of their ill-informed financial decisions; the children their children and the cycle continues.

The good thing is that the vicious cycle of the consequences of ill-informed financial decisions can be broken by providing financial literacy and instilling among the wider population a positive attitude towards financial literacy.

This is the very essence of our CPAR Uganda “Financial Literacy and Loans for Women in Uganda” project for which we crowd fundraising via the GlobalGiving platform. To learn more and make a donation CLICK HERE

The status of insufficient financial literacy among Ugandans, furthermore, justifies our “Financial Literacy Training Courses” we will implement as part of our “Life Skills Education” component under our ongoing “Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Center Human Development Project which are jointly implementing with Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief (CPAR). To learn more, CLICK HERE.

Profiled photo @ Hon. Obigah Rose