10 Nov 2013

The Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri has blamed young people's laziness and poor customer service on the part of officers for the failure of youth projects to take off. 

Consequently he said, millions of Pula allocated for youth programmes remained untouched. The assistant minister said the forum was timely as the youth were complaining about delays in processing of their business proposals which led them to drag their legs. Youth officers one hand, wondered why young people were not coming forth.

“This time calls for both youths and their officers to stand up and find the root cause of this situation and then find strategies to curb it”, he said.  He urged young people to come up with original, viable and realistic ideas, adding that a realistic market research and a good business proposal created a good business idea. 

He advised that youth officers’ role was to assist and not think for the youth. Deputy director of youth empowerment scheme, Ms Boitshepo Bolele said many young people remained unemployed and they must stand up and fight their battles to win.

“Nothing comes easy, toil hard even in submitting your business proposal don’t expect miracles. Make sure that you discuss openly your downfalls and challenges with your youth officers and by so doing many puzzles will be cracked”, she said.

She further advised youth to open catchy business pages on facebook to help them market their products. She said in an effort to encourage young people, they were looking at engaging churches to help mobilise them.

For their part, young people said youths officers were slow to process their proposals. Mr Onalethata Ngwanaamotho said, one could submit a proposal in January and only get the response towards the end of the year. “By then the excitement and the zeal would have gone thus most of youth tend to drag their feet”, he said. 

The youths further suggested that they should be provided with mentors to help them in putting together their business proposal to prevent a situation where their applications were rejected outright. Ends