adminSukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
THE Kurera/Ukondla Youth Fund has been a flop as 84 percent of beneficiaries have defaulted on loan repayments since the inception of the facility in 2011, the Deputy Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment, Mathias Tongofa has said. In an interview on the sidelines of a business expo in Plumtree on Saturday, Deputy Minister Tongofa said the programme had done little to improve the livelihoods of youths.
He said most of the beneficiaries were failing to pay back the loans they were given, a development partially blamed on failure to develop good projects. The deputy minister acknowledged that some youths received funds without first acquiring proper business management skills, hence the high default rate.
“The youth loan fund programme is not going according to plan because some people who were allocated money are now poorer than before. As government we have urged beneficiaries to pay back the loans but the truth is that they are incapable of doing it,” said Deputy Minister Tongofa.
He said when the programme was launched, there were four institutions involved — IDBZ, CBZ, Stanbic and Cabs — but three of them had frozen the facility because of non-payment of loans. He said under the Cabs facility about $5 million had been disbursed so far out of $10 million and the institution wants to discontinue it.
“We are still trying to diagnose why the programme failed because our expectation is that all the money should have been disbursed by now and paid back to confirm the success of the programme,” he said.
The deputy minister said the process will involve ensuring that remaining funds went to people who deserved them. He said each province had been allocated $1 million under the Cabs facility and Matabeleland South Province had recorded the lowest uptake at less than $300,000.
Some of the people who attended the business meeting pointed out that many applications by youths within the province for the fund were being turned down.
The Kurera/Ukondla Youth Fund was set up as a way of easing the problem of unemployment and act as a stimulus to economic growth in the country. The fund is targeted at youths between the ages of 18 and 35 who are expected to start business projects and create employment for fellow young people.
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