Youth ministry to pursue defaulters of development Fund
| By Staff Reporter
A senior civil servant in the Eastern Province says the government will recover funds from beneficiaries who are unable to repay money obtained under the public-financed Youth Development Fund. Susan Munalisa, the provincial coordinator for the Ministry of Sport, Youth and Child Development, said her office is trying to put up measures that would help recover the money from the affected youths. Munalisa told journalists in Chipata this morning that going forward the young people who would want to access the Youth Development Fund (YDF) would be required to form youth groups for easy follow ups on the repay mode. She however, said some of the youths had been paying back the loans and were doing well in their business ventures. Munalisa said her ministry’s role was to eradicate poverty among vulnerable youth and it was therefore important that those who access YDF repay the loans so that more of their peers are enabled to access the funds. But a Chipata entrepreneur, Enos Banda, says the government had faced challenges in following up on youths who benefitted from the YDF loans because the people they had given the monies were not in business. Banda, who is INKTECH Business Entrepreneurship director, said youths that had existing businesses had been denied access to the YDF, a situation he deems unfortunate.
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