Failure of youth businesses worries NEDC councilors
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday May 26, 2015 17:03
At a recent full council meeting, councilors bemoaned the low success rate of the youth enterprises, adding that action had to be taken to ensure young people invest into the success of the businesses.
NEDC Chairperson, Florah Mpetsane said many youth businesses have collapsed because the beneficiaries lack the commitment and patience to properly run their enterprises.
“It has been observed that there is high mobility among youth leading to abandonment of projects,” she said.
She, however, said the district is currently carrying out a mass monitoring exercise to ascertain the causes of the problem and how it could be solved.
Tati Siding councilor, Dumani Kelepi said the relevant authorities should walk the talk about monitoring youth funded enterprises to ensure that many of them become successful. “Our interest is to see the results of millions of Pulas that the government is spending on youth bearing fruits. We want the youth to create employment opportunities for their peers,” he argued.
The NEDC vice chairperson, Dikitso Mandevu suggested that government should empower the young entrepreneurs with business training before and after funding them in an effort to make them successful. He added that the ongoing training would help them solicit assistance from professionals who would better advise them on how to deal with the problems they encounter when running their businesses.
When presenting the District Development Committee report, Onkokame Mafoko, the district development officer in the region, reiterated Mandevu’s sentiments, adding that they have roped in councilors and Village Development Committees (VDCs) to help them identify the businesses that have collapsed and establish the cause of the collapse.
“Your involvement as councilors as well as VDC’s will help us even to locate the beneficiaries who are failing to pay back their loans so that we may help more youth,” he said.