12 May 2017

Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development district coordinator, Ms Minkie Bokole has raised concern over the alarming rate of the collapse of Youth Development Fund (YDF) funded projects in the area.

Speaking during the Urban Development Committee (UDC) meeting chaired by Francistown District Commissioner (DC), Ms Chabongwa Matseka on May 10, she said the way the projects were collapsing called for the government to look for strategies which could help with behavioural change of beneficiaries and bring about a positive mindset among them.

She said they had done the best they could to help the youth to sustain their businesses through mentor-ship and monitoring, but that it seemed all was in vain.

Ms Bokole expressed her disappointment on the lack of commitment to the projects of the funded beneficiaries, saying it was upon them to try and create jobs for themselves and others and meet government halfway.

“The youth who are in business when they feel they no longer want it, they just abandon the project and relocate to unknown places and it becomes very difficult for us to trace them,” said Ms Bokole.

Furthermore, she raised concern over lack of operating space to allocate the beneficiaries to start their agricultural projects in the city.

She pleaded with city authorities who sit on the UDC to allocate them land so that they continue funding projects, which would benefit the community and the youth.

On other issues, she said they had realised that the youth were bitter and were doing anything to get the funding, and that they later abandon and misuse the funded equipment, which was failing the mandate of the programme.

She urged departments which have national internship, government volunteer scheme and other youth empowerment programmes to absorb or employ those they had groomed and had acquired skills of the departments to try and curb the high unemployment rate in the country.

Meanwhile, presenting to the committee, the senior gender officer from the Department of Gender Affairs, Ms Poloko Sethono urged all stakeholders to start identifying projects which were not saturated in the market in order to help beneficiaries.

She said funding programmes that were saturated in the market was like throwing money away as they do not bear fruit because of low supply due to high competition in the marketplace.

Ms Poloko said they were faced with challenges of beneficiaries who want to engage in projects already existing in abundance in the market, hence their advices were often ignored.

She said they were also inundated with pressure from political leaders who disturbed the programme and derailed it from its mandate, forcing the projects to fail before they even begin.

Ms Sethono said their observations showed that people get the funds for the wrong reasons, noting that it worsens the economic situation of the country because the millions that were to help eradicate poverty and create jobs were in return expected to benefit communities, hence improving the state of the economy in the country.

Francistown College of Technical and Vocational Education (FCTVE) principal, Mr Asalepele Tobedza said there was a crucial need for investing in developing skills of beneficiaries further, especially those who were new in business.

He said the other way in which they could help to ensure the programmes do not fail was by focusing on empowering the existing ones so that they do not collapse. ENDS