Africa-Press – Botswana. Gaborone City Council continues to struggle with a number of youth that were failing to repay their Youth Development Fund (YDF) loans.
Giving an update outlining the events and progress on government projects and programmes from both Central and Local government departments for the period of October to December in the Gaborone District, the Principal District Officer (Development) Ms Diane Oabile said the YDF loan repayments were slow coming in.
Ms Oabile said for all the quarters they expected to collect P5 139 452.20, but they were able to collect P126 870.64, P11 750.00, P8 883.30, P17 844.00 and P142 870.64 respectively.
She asked those that have benefited to be motivated and encouraged to appreciate the importance of loan repayment and therefore urged them to comply with the terms and conditions of the YDF contracts.
She said, although over 1 500 YDF forms were issued, only 498 youth were oriented, further saying 160 youth submitted proposals, and 50 were disqualified. She added that 40 were then approved at P3 586 545.89.
Ms Oabile said 35 projects were funded with P3 256 363.14 and 50 jobs were created through those projects.
Regarding the primary school supplementary feeding programme, Ms Oabile said bread, white samp, sunflower cooking oil, and gas were supplied well on time to all the 29 schools without fail.
She nevertheless said the peanut butter that has been recalled due to possible contamination was replaced by fruit jam.
She said there were currently no beans at schools saying the order had been made with the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB). She said a total of P245 440.00 was disbursed to schools for the handyman initiative.
In regards to weekly collection of household waste, Ms Oabile said there were challenges, as there was frequent breakdown of old fleet and overstretched capacity of the existing fleet.
She nevertheless said they would continue to advocate for prompt maintenance of the waste collection fleet through daily briefings by waste collection services logistic forum to ascertain the availability and reliability of services trucks.
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