24 Aug 2016

North East District Council chairperson Ms Flora Mpetsane has raised concern over non-payment of loans by beneficiaries of Youth Development Fund (YDF) in the district.

Speaking during the district full council session on August 22, Ms Mpetsane said it was worrisome that the payments of loans by beneficiaries were very low and accounted for only 0.6 per cent collection this financial year.

She attributed this to lack of commitment and determination to projects which had resulted in projects collapsing.

As such, she implored the district councillors to encourage the youth to take their projects seriously as well as encouraging them to re-pay their loans.

Ms Mpetsane urged the beneficiaries to utilise the available services to come up with sound businesses plans that would in future create lucrative businesses and create employment even for other youths.    

Furthermore, she noted that the economic empowerment programmes were also progressing well, however it was evident that the limited YDF funds allocated cannot cover all applications received by the office.

She said the district had a budget of P4 million which could only fund approximately 39 projects while the remaining funds were used for other YDF related activities such as training and youth expositions.

Ms Mpetsane said the district office received a total of 111 YDF applications adding that  of the 17 proposals which were received at the opening of cycle,  12 of those  proposals were approved for funding at the value of P893, 756  while five were rejected.

Ms Mpetsane said that the funds disbursement process for approved proposals was on-going and application process for the remaining 94 proposals was also on going and the process was expected to be completed by the end of September 2016.

She mentioned that the district office had managed to recover only P7 800 against the annual target of P1.2 million for the financial year 2016/17.

Ms Mpetsane stated that there was a need for the ministry to devise effective strategies that were user friendly to beneficiaries and did not require them to necessarily go to the offices to make their payments. Ends