10 Dec 2017

Parliament has rejected a motion that called on government to reconsider its legal pursuit against CEDA Young Farmers fund defaulters with a view to resuscitate and relieve their businesses.

Tabling the motion, Francistown West MP, Mr Ignitious Moswaane said that was because beneficiaries’ businesses had suffered losses due to unforeseen natural disaster and that government seemed to have piloted the project on unsuspecting individuals who took up the funds.

He said beneficiaries’ businesses had failed since 2008 due to poor research before funding by government.

As such, Mr Moswaane said instead of government writing the businesses off and demanding that loans be paid through legal action, it would be more worthwhile to assess the performance of each funded project on an individual basis to understand how the business could have collapsed.

He further said if reasons for the collapse of the business would be reasonable enough, government should consider to write off their loans and possibly consider resuscitating some of the businesses.

When arguing his motion, he said it appeared government did not do much research on the feasibility of the fund and that there could have been no proper monitoring on the projects which were funded and run by inexperienced persons.

“Therefore, writing off the loans should consider among others’ the performance of each funded project and whether there was proper monitoring of the project,” he said.

He further said several factors could have played a part in some people failing to service their loans, which include inexperience, project done out of desperation instead of passion, poor training that is not aligned to specific projects and harsh climate conditions.

He indicated that CEDA young farmers funded projects that were affected by natural disasters resulting in foreclosure amount to over P103 million out of the 360 funded projects.

When rejecting the motion, legislators said while reasons advanced by Mr Moswaane were to some extent valid, it was not feasible to write off the loans because that would set a wrong precedence.

They also argued that doing so would create a problem in future because some young farmers took personal loans to finance their projects, and as such the move to write off loans for some would be unfair.

Legislators said some might have entered into farming without passion, but because money was available then, which might have contributed to the high failure rate.

Some said when government introduced young farmers fund, there were problems that existed such as monopolisation of some industries such as piggery and poultry.

Those who were in support of the motion said there was evidence that young farmers businesses did not collapse due to negligence, but natural disasters.

They suggested that agriculture sector should re-look as to how agriculture could be improved including introduction of insurance scheme for farmers, agriculture bank.

Legislators also said it would be worthwhile to review funding programmes that government has had before tackling mindset change of the beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, Assistant Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Mr Biggy Butale said it was not feasible to write off  loans.

He said when the fund was introduced, the idea was to attract passionate farmers who would in due course grow and become master farmers.

“I appreciate the mover of the motion, but I am persuaded by LOO, Mr Duma Boko, who said should we agree with this motion, we are going to set a precedent which will forever be used by those who fail to service their loans that this Parliament once wrote off loans,” he said.

He said he concurred with Mr Boko, adding that former president, Dr Festus Mogae once dealt with Barolong during the NDB saga and maintained that ‘if Batswana can know that if you borrow money you got to pay for it, it will do the economy good’. ENDS