NAMISINDWA, September 19, 2023 – Authorities in Namisindwa district in Eastern Uganda have failed to recover more than Shs 710 million advanced to the youth under the Youth Livelihood Programme [YLP].
Launched in January 2014, the Shs 265 billion YLP is a government programme designed to respond to the high unemployment rate and poverty among the youth in the country.
According to Namisindwa district officials, the money was advanced to youth groups numbering between 10-15 members who were given a grace period of one year before they could pay back the loans with 5 percent interest.
According to the Namisindwa District Community Development Officer, Andrew Wabweni, most of the youth in the district have have no plans to repay the money since they are not in business.
He said this has affected the remaining youth in the district as they are still waiting to benefit from the YLP. “I urge local leaders from village levels to sensitise the youth who got the money to pay back such that others can also use it to develop themselves,” Wabweni said.
He however said that only Shs 10 million has been recovered.
The Namisindwa district LCV chairperson, Jackson Wakwaika, said 80 youth groups from different sub- counties in the district received the money under YLP, run by the Gender ministry.
He made the remarks days ago during a council meeting held at district headquarters. He said the recovered money is not even 10 percent of the Shs 710mln that the district received under YLP.
Moses Bwayo, a youth in the district, said his group was given money to invest in onions, however, he said, the group incurred losses due to the price fluctuations and therefore could not pay back the loan to YLP revolving fund.
The First phase of the YLP which was launched during the financial year 2013/2014 was completed by the end of June 2019. However, following the national review of the programme, key performance improvement measures were identified and some recommendations made to enhance and maximise the benefits of YLP.
As at June 30, 2019, the Ministry of Finance had disbursed about Shs 160.2bln to 20,159 projects benefitting a total number of 241,799 youth out of which 46 percent were female.
Achievements
As an achievement of the first phase of YLP, Shs 36.566bln out of Shs70.75bln that was due had been recovered. This, according to planners of the programme represents a repayment rate of 64 percent. Amount due means the money that is expected to be recovered according to the project work plan. However, not all projects have the same maturity period.
Further 300 projects had completed 100 percent recovery of funds and were ready to transition into Small and Medium Sized enterprises.
One of the cardinal pillars of YLP is revolving of the recovered funds to local governments to enable more youth groups be funded. “The advantage is to provide resource leverage and reduce pressure on public resources to finance the programme,” says a summary of phase I of YLP.
About Shs 9bln was disbursed as revolving funds to 1,058 projects benefitting 9,101 youth between March 2020 and January 2021.
Challenges
The YLP has faced challenges such as overwhelming demand, misinformation, natural calamities [drought, disease outbreaks, floods], low technical capacity in some local governments and poor attitude of some youth.
Mitigation measures
Among others, there have been calls to reschedule repayments and refinancing projects genuinely affected by natural calamities as well as strengthening sensitisation and advocacy aimed at mindset change among the youth.
https://thecooperator.news/namisindwa-pdm-officials-arrested-over-extortion/
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