21 May 2017

The Serowe Administrative Authority, Economic Planner Mr Pako Maradung says beneficiaries of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) are not very committed to their projects.

Mr Maradung said this while presenting a Sub District Economic Development Committee   report to the Sub District Development Committee recently.

“That is why they are not doing well hence the reason they fail to pay back their loans,” he said.

He said once beneficiaries’ salaries are exhausted, they do not cooperate with the office, citing example that they did not submit their progress report.

Mr Maradung further said their office was unable to recoup from beneficiaries as there were no guidelines for such.

He said more often, beneficiaries relocated place of operation, without notifying the office about the changes, thus resulting in monitoring not consulted for such projects.

He revealed that since the inception of YDF in 2009, 437 projects have been funded, of which 400 were operational, while 23 have collapsed and 14 at procurement stage.

He said, of the 26 projects which have been monitored, the employment figures stood at 800 with turnover reported at P121 620.00.

Mr Maradung said, in mitigation measures, the Department of Youth has issued 197 warning letters to defaulters.

“We have drawn the project monitoring schedule and have targeted at least 40 projects per quarter,” he said.

Further, he said they have also scheduled a loan repayment workshop for quarter one, and an entrepreneurial training which is to be conducted soon.

Still on his presentation, under the Social and Economic Development, while covering the status of rehabilitation and income generating projects, said they were challenged by lack of operational space for the upholstery project and the insufficient market.

He however said they have resourced 10 stalls from the council for the beneficiaries, and also encouraged them to make quality projects that can penetrate the market for their products.

“There are 18 success stories from different villages of the administrative authority. There are 3 bakeries, 7 fashion design, 4 salon, 1 welding and 3 food catering projects.

For his part, in his welcome remarks, The Chairperson of Sub DDC, also the Senior Assistant Council Secretary at Serowe Administrative Authority (SAA), Mr Terrence Ntalabgwe said the commimmitee was one of the critical to the development of the Sub DDC.

Matters relating to employment creation which was multi faceted as issues such as land needed to be discussed.“We should strive to ensure that we work as a team in addressing the challenges that we are faced with,” he said.

He said the issue of transport was a major challenge in their district, but urged that there was need for Parastatals and Government to share transport as both had the mandate to push the development agenda.

Mr Ntalabgwe said poverty eradication schemes were a challenge as it was not running smooth due to the challenge of transport.

“We should have a plan to ensure that all goes well, and this means working together cooperatively as a team and sharing resources. ENDS