Matabeleland youths are sidelined in allocation of loans

There has been a lot of debate concerning the government allocation of youth fund which has been said to be discriminatory. Matabeleland youths are said to be sidelined in the allocation of loans under the Indigenisation Ministry's youth fund.

The CABS Kurera/ Ukondla Youth Fund has been said to have discriminated against youths in marginalised areas, this being reflected by low numbers of beneficiaries in Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South.

The press in 2012 reported that most of the beneficiaries of the $2 million youth fund were from the Mashonaland central and Harare regions while Matabeleland youths, despite applying had almost a nil representation and reception of the funds. what further worsened the crisis were reports of rampant abuse of the youth funds, with some of the Harare based beneficiaries getting the fund more than once, after seeking funding for projects under pseudo names.

Furthermore as part of the youth fund abuse, the Zimbabwe Youth Council Director Livingstone Dzikira in the Newsday revealed that 70% of the funds were used by youths intending to get married thus what could have been thriving businesses and an injection of business growth in Matabeleland was blocked due to misappropriation of funds and misuse of the funds as well

One begs to ask if the hundreds of Matabeleland youths business proposals were not good enough or it was an attitude issue when it came to the project evaluators concerning Matabeleland based projects.