13 Jun 2018

The deputy district commissioner for Tonota Sub-district, Ms Boitumelo Mokwena says the recovering of loans from Youth Development Fund (YDF) beneficiaries  remains a challenge.

Presenting the District Development Committee (DDC) report at a sub-council meeting recently, Ms Mokwena said the sub-district had collected only about P57 000 out of over P432 000 targeted for the quarter.

She noted that total arrears stood at over P5 million and that there had not been any positive response to the request for beneficiaries to repay back their loans.

However, she noted that a number of them were paying back their loan.

She said they had had meetings with the concerned beneficiaries and that they cited challenges of high rentals and the lack of a market, adding that the sub-district was planning to have collaborative and stakeholder workshops to address the issue.

She said there were currently 275 projects in the sub-district in beef production, small stock, horticulture, poultry, manufacturing and services.

“A total of 234 projects are operational, 19 not operational while 16 have collapsed and six are at procurement stage,” she said.

She noted that project monitoring was carried out on 23 projects out of 50 targeted projects and that total employment was 458 while turnover was P14 000.

Ms Mokwena said seven projects funded by Social and Community Development (S&CD) were all operational as well as all the eight projects implemented under the Rural Area Development Programme (RADP) with employment standing at 26.

Out of 59 funded projects for women economic empowerment, 49 are operational, three not operational, three failed and four newly funded projects are at procurement and implementation stage.She noted further that employment stood at 15 and that it was attributed to the fact that most of the projects were still at infancy stage, and that total turnover realised was over P677 000.

Ms Mokwena explained that the sub-district had 4 688 mobilised persons out of which 3 558 were assessed and 2 090 were found eligible.She said 1 491 had been funded of which 1 155 were operational and 274 were non-operational, 62 had failed and 72 were excelling, and that the rate of success of projects measured in terms of operational projects stood at 77 per cent.

She said the sub-district has been allocated P2 million for the 2018/19 financial year to implement the programme and that as at the end of April over P66 000 had been expended.

Ms Mokwena highlighted that 80 people living with disabilities qualified for the programme since inception and that all have been funded and 50 projects were operational, 27 non-operational, three failed and no projects were excelling. ENDS