20 Feb 2014

Parliament has been informed that since the commencement of CEDA’s Young Farmers Fund on April 1, 2007, seven projects valued at P2 million have been approved in the Tonota North constituency.

Answering a question in Parliament, Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Keletso Rakhudu said six of the seven projects were not operational while the remaining project was not performing well and in arrears.

“Some of the reasons that resulted in the collapse of these funded projects include low yield from boreholes drilled for the projects, poor management practices and lack of business acumen,” he said.

He added that the other problems encountered were disease outbreaks such as FMD, floods, frost and hailstorms. “Lack of commitment to the business by the young promoters also led to the collapse of the projects,” he said.

Mr Rakhudu said since the young farmers fund started, the turnaround times for responses were not satisfactory, averaging three to six months.

“This was due to the high number of applications received and below quality interaction with potential clients. To date, the turnaround time has significantly improved to 30 to 45 days,” he stated.

MP for Tonota North, Mr Fidelis Molao had asked the minister about the number of young people who have benefited from the young farmers fund from 2005 to date, the number of projects that were still operational and those that had collapsed and the reasons thereof as well as the turnaround time for approving project requests and whether it was satisfactory. ENDS