15 Nov 2020

The Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Mr Tumiso Rakgare says due to the reluctance of many Youth Development Fund (YDF) beneficiaries to service their loans, the ministry is compelled to be more stringent as it embarks on a mission to collect what the recipients have signed to repay.

Mr Rakgare was speaking at the launch of the loan recovery campaign in Jwaneng on November 12, a campaign he said was ‘an occasion that marks an exercise that my ministry was not expecting to arrive at, where we have to remind responsible citizens and future leaders of this republic of their obligations.’

Mr Rakgare therefore cautioned YDF defaulters that by next month, they should have normalised their repayments or approach the relevant MYSC office to agree on a repayment plan. Failure to do so, he said, would leave the ministry with no option, but to seek legal interventions against them by February next year.

He also said that the ministry would also consider blacklisting the defaulters from benefiting from affirmative action in favour of the youth and other related government initiatives they would otherwise enjoy had they settled their arrears.

The minister said that for livestock projects, defaulters will be required to sell part of their stock to repay, but would be allowed to remain with the seed stock and 10 animals. 

He said that they decided on such stern measure because the ministry’s books currently stand at more than P407 million, an amount he said could be used to fund many more new projects.

He also said the ministry decided on such moves after considering that for many years, it had been accommodative of defaulters, and that now a balance between the interest of other prospects and members of the public, who are the owners of the funds, had to be considered.

“The loan book alone could fund three and half years of new YDF projects. A total of more than 4 072 young Batswana could benefit if this owed amount was paid back,” he said. 

He said that this was more so that on an annual basis, they received thousands of applications from hopeful youth around the country, of which only 1 140 at the most could be funded due to budget constraints.

Mr Rakgare therefore said the launch of the campaign, themed: Akola ke Akole, was just one of the many avenues his ministry continued to employ in its quest to collect the loans owed, complementing other moves like sending reminders through sms notifications and letters.

He said despite all the efforts, it was disappointing that only about P20.8m had been collected in the past eleven years since the flagship programme’s launch in 2009.

Mr Rakgare said that failure to repay was equal to denying other deserving youth their right to enjoying government’s assistance. 

Mr Rakgare said the ministry acknowledged the difficulties that businesses faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, hence the decision to extent a wage relief package to YDF beneficiaries.

He said however that it was evident that the effects of the pandemic could not be blamed for lack of repayment since non-payment predated the outbreak of COVID-19. He said it was also evident that even some very successful youth funded businesses had continued to ignore their responsibility to repay.

“It is those that are doing well that I would like to send a word of caution that we continue to explore effective ways of collecting what is due to government. Failure to honour your obligations could result in serious implications for your businesses,” he said.

The minister said that despite the stern measures, government was still committed to youth empowerment. Ends