17 Mar 2013

The Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture will continue to focus on policy areas that will promote youth entrepreneurship and use of sport and arts to provide opportunities for employment, Minister Shaw Kgathi told Parliament Thursday.

Presenting the budget proposals for the 2013/14 financial year, Mr Kgathi said particular attention would therefore be paid to youth issues when allocating resources.

He also noted that it was through the ministry’s overall strategy to empower young people through capacity building initiatives, access to ICT, providing life skills and talent development that young Batswana were beginning to venture into professional sport and the creative industry.

Thus, Mr Kgathi urged stakeholders to collaborate with government and support initiatives geared towards youth empowerment.

On the Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES), Parliament heard that to date, 1 770 young people have successfully completed three life skills and character refinement training through boot camps set up at Kang and Pandamatenga, out of which 1 740 have been attached to various government departments and in the private sector.

The minister emphasised that the boot camp was an important component of the YES because it fostered character building and behaviour change among the youth.

He added that the boot camp is a 4-6 weeks programme comprising modules on health and wellness, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, team building, discipline and stress management as well as drug and alcohol abuse.

The minister said the scheme also seek to address skills deficiencies among the youth hence the over P2 million funding through the ministry and that of labour and home affairs for a construction of a multi-skilling programme offered by Construction Industry Trust Fund (CITF).

The programme aims at certification of youth's unskilled labour to improve their employability in the construction industry. Further, he said the first batch of 82 participants was currently undergoing training in Gaborone and Palapye for three months.

He said training would also assist youth to take advantage of the 15 per cent reserved quota for youth owned construction companies under the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology and other projects.

On the other hand, the minister expressed concern about recovery of the youth development fund loans which he said remained unsatisfactory due to unfavourable economic environment and in some cases lack of commitment by beneficiaries to honour their financial obligations.

He added that youth entrepreneurs also pointed out lack of support by some government agencies, local authorities as well as the private sector, lack of operational spaces in major villages and towns and the exorbitant rentals as contributing largely to collapse of their businesses.

The minister thus appealed to members to encourage young people in their respective constituencies to repay their loans so as to have more young people benefiting from the fund.

Thus the minister requested Parliament to approve over P74 million and over P479 million under the ministry’s development and recurrent budgets respectively for the next financial year.

Mr Kgathi indicated that under the development budget, the ministry headquarters will use over P13 million to develop its information and technology infrastructure project and over P2 million for fleet expansion as well as over P10 million for completion and final payment for Kanye and Gaborone records centre projects. ENDS