24 Apr 2018

Out of school youth have been urged to utilise government programmes aimed at reducing unemployment and poverty.

This was said by the programmes officer from the Ministry of Youth Empowerment Sport and Culture Development, Mr Arabang Sefakwe on Friday when addressing attendees at a Youth Development Fund orientation.

]He urged them to utilise government initiatives as they were designed to help them gain employment and kick out poverty.

He said the youth in Kgalagadi District have been receptive of Youth Development Fund programmes as evidenced by the high number of applications.

He noted that the district had utilised all funds allocated to it in the previous year worth P2 million to fund 19 projects.

He said each ward received about P100 000 and urged the youth to diversify business ideas to gain a competitive edge over existing ones.

Mr Sefakwe pointed out that the remaining funds were utilised for training in basic business management, service and manufacturing so as to capacitate beneficiaries to effectively run and manage their projects.

Mr Sefakwe noted that most of the projects funded were in the agricultural sector. He said there were challenges of unavailability of serviced land in setting up manufacturing and services industries.

He said the ministry would be receiving new application from next month, and implored the youth to have all necessary documentation and to consult expert advice to avoid back and forth returns because it was time consuming.

The strategy, he said, had been effective in mitigating application backlogs and speeding project turnaround time,.

Mr Sefakwe said the government alone could not end unemployment and poverty, hence the need for all stakeholders including the youth to play an active role in the economic development of the country. Ends