23 Aug 2016

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture Mr Kago Ramokate has advised beneficiaries of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) to pay the ministry their outstanding balances.

Mr Ramokate said this, when addressing Mahalapye Sub -district YDF beneficiaries in Mahalapye recently explaining that the ministry is owed a lot of money which could be used to fund more young people and help create jobs to their fellow age mates.

He said between 2009-2015 central district was been funded with P48.3 million and that the ministry was owed P22.6 million.

He noted that the amount owed was enough to help other young people get started on their businesses if paid back on time.

Mr Ramokate said the ministry’s vision was to see youth make strides in businesses, to grow independent and create employment opportunities for themselves and other young people.

He said YDF was an empowerment programme aimed at promoting active participation of youth in the socio-economic development of the country.

He said one of its objectives was to create sustainable employment opportunities for young people through the development of sustainable projects. 

He said most of them were given funds amounting to P100 000 of which they were supposed to payback 50 per cent of the fund amount as per their agreement with the ministry.

He noted that those who have been funded were all given a grace period of three months. 

He said some of the YDF projects were doing well while some have collapsed or have difficulties getting off the ground, something which he said they should work hard on.

Mr Ramokate said MYSC was aware that as young people they were faced with many challenges, but pleaded with them to benchmark with others so that they too could succeed.

He encouraged them to be responsible and accountable business people who people could trust.

Further, Mr Ramokate urged them to form an association for young people in business so that they could easily communicate their challenges and successes to the ministry. 

He said if they had an association they could also easily communicate with MYSC some of the challengesthey faced.

He said MSYC would also liaise with different government departments to have youth focal persons so that they could easily advise their departments on issues concerning young people.

For their part, Mahalapye young entrepreneurs said they struggle in their businesses because they lack training on business management hence some of them collapse or end up not doing well.

They also suggested that the government initiate an Adopt a business programme that will facilitate the sharing of business skills by established business people and young entrepreneurs. Ends