Millions of Pula �vanish� in Youth Fund
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday April 8, 2016 15:12
The report, covering the 2015 financial year, reinforces reports that emerged at last year’s Public Accounts Committee where Youth, Sport and Culture Permanent Secretary (PS), Louis Malikongwa admitted that government had no clue how much had been disbursed under the YDF or how much was outstanding.
At the time, Malikongwa said the YDF could not be monitored due to the lack of a proper loan book and outstanding balances could not be recovered, as there was no reliable tracking process.
Embarrassingly for the ministry, Malikongwa failed to state the amount of outstanding YDF balances before the committee, due to the chaos within the fund.
Now, the Auditor General has revealed the scale of the rot within the fund, with an audit of five villages showing that millions have gone missing in the YDF.
In Maun, it was established that while P19.9 million had been disbursed in YDF loans since inception in 2009, only P407,920 had been repaid while P643,407 was stated as the total arrears covering the entire period.
Still in Maun, an array of high value assets including generators, sewing machines, computer equipment, morula oil processing machines and electric kilns, totalling P34,686 from collapsed projects had been kept in a storeroom from as far back as 2013 without a plan for their disposal.
“There was no evidence that any action was taken to follow up loan recoveries and settlement of the existing arrears,” the Auditor General noted.
At Gumare, YDF disbursements since inception of the programme in 2009, totalled P7.8 million while arrears were pegged at P22,943.
The report shows that the personal records of the beneficiaries had not been updated to reflect the exact amounts of the arrears.
In Charleshill, YDF loans worth P11 million were disbursed since 2009, and only P659,251 repaid, with outstanding arrears said to be P161,895.
“A number of items of stores and equipment from collapsed projects had been kept in the storeroom since 2013, without any plan for their disposal.”
At Hukuntsi, the office was given a loan disbursement of P2 million, out of which P122,070 was recovered in repayments with outstanding arrears said to be P286,050.
“A number of projects in Hukuntsi region had collapsed, but no action had been taken to recover the assets involved in those projects for projects for proper disposal,” the Auditor General said.
In Gantsi total loans disbursed amounted to P4 million out of which only a paltry P30,914 was repaid. The Auditor General described the YDF’s operations as ‘highly unsatisfactory’, primarily due to lack of proper monitoring.
“The fund is typically plagued by high levels of arrears of loan repayments and project failures without a clear mechanism for dealing with the assets of failed projects.” The YDF is an empowerment programme aimed at encouraging out-of-school, marginalised and unemployed youth to venture into sustainable and viable income generating projects.
The Fund offers successful applicants up to P100,000 comprising both a grant and an interest free loan.