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Ministry of Youths loans an uphill task
Youth Alliance for Democracy
December 03, 2009

The Ministry of Youths Revolving Fund meant for loans to financially empower youths is now creating more problems than solved. The challenges are hinged around the tedious process. The pre-requisites are too many and they are beyond reach of many youths which include collateral and quotations. We received a complaint from one of our members from Kwekwe who submitted her forms for vetting and was told to bring collateral. Upon bringing Vehicle registration book, she was referred to a property evaluation company to verify the value of the vehicle, after that she was told to go and bring all the quotations for the items in the budget. This was after traveling on three occasions from Kwekwe to Harare (212 km) without seeing the National Youth Coordinator. There are also reports that youths aligned to civic society and MDC-T are being sidelined in obtaining those loans.

It has also come out that the loan is meager for big projects, given that it caters for less than US$1000 per youth, as there are a lot of expenses met in coming up with the proposal, in line with the logistical costs. It has been described by some participants as a political gimmick meant to portray the 'spirit of inclusiveness.'

At most the loan can only cater for the needs of 900 youths assuming that each gets $1000 for a project which is window dressing considering that over 6.5million people living in Zimbabwe are youths.

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