09 Apr 2014

Acting Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Mr Vincent Seretse says the repayment of the loan component of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) is slow due to challenges relating to the performance of the youth projects.

He told Parliament that he was hopeful that the situation would improve following the introduction of the Local Procurement Scheme by Government, involving reservation of 20 per cent of all procurement activities for the youth, women and people living with disabilities. He said this was meant to provide market access to products from youth companies.

He said moreover, the ministry had been restructured, culminating in the redeployment of many officers to the districts, where they would effectively monitor youth projects to improve the general performance of such projects.

Mr Seretse said with particular reference to livestock loans, since 2009/2010, 1 480 young people have been funded for livestock production throughout the country. He said out of this number, 1 057 were supposed to be servicing their loans during 2013, taking into consideration the grace period of 36 months for cattle and 12 months for small stock.

He said 343 of them were servicing their loans satisfactorily whilst the rest were inconsistent in this respect. Minister Seretse further said the ministry has not done an assessment or study to establish the extent to which the 2013 drought specifically affected loan repayment of the YDF by young people funded for livestock production.

He said it may therefore be inaccurate for him to directly link failure to meet loan repayment obligation by young people running livestock projects to the 2013 severe drought. Mr Seretse said with respect to the extent to which young farmers who had breeding projects were affected, none of the young livestock producers specialises in breeding livestock.

He said they produce and sell according to the market demand and therefore, the issue specifically regarding the breeding projects does not arise.

He said the ministry has never had an instance of young farmers who lost all their livestock, expect at Zone 6 in Tati East constituency, where six young people had their livestock destroyed as part of the Foot and Mouth eradication exercise in 2012 and that all of them were being assisted by the Ministry of Agriculture during the on-going restocking exercise.

Nevertheless, he said if beneficiaries lose all their livestock before meeting their loan obligations, the ministry would conduct an assessment and come up with appropriate interventions.

He however said payment of the loan was an obligation for all funded young people. He further said there are no monetary values as there were no loses reported.

He was answering Kweneng East MP, Major Gen. Moeng Pheto who had asked the minister to update Parliament on the repayment of the YDF loans with particular reference to livestock loans following the devastating drought in 2013.

He had also asked him to state the extent to which young farmers who had breeding projects were affected and wanted to know the ministry’s position concerning loan repayments by young farmers who lost their livestock and how much such loses have been reported and their value in monetary terms. ENDS