Zanu-PF officials loot $40 million youth fund dry

The Youth Development Fund has proved to be a monumental failure due to looting and fraud which came in the form of bogus projects. In the end, the economy is the biggest loser as the $40 million that was earmarked for economic empowerment programmes have gone down the drain.

Almost 95% of projects visited recently by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Youth and Indigenisation were either non-existent or had simply collapsed because they had never been genuine in the first place. They were just excuses for looting the fund by unscrupulous youths.

MPs seconded to the committee led by Justice Mayor Wadyajena spent two weeks touring the youth projects that benefitted from a 2010 $40 million facility financed by four banks - CABS, CBZ, Stanbic Bank and Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe. The committee expected to find thriving projects, only to find empty chicken runs, empty pigsties and angry youths that said they never benefitted from the fund.

In Nyanga North, the committee was even taken for a ride by Youth ministry officials who sent them on a long fruitless journey to visit a "farm project" owned by one of the beneficiaries, Ranga Nyamurundira, a personal assistant to Youth minister Patrick Zhuwao.

The committee had information that Nyamurundira had taken a $4 500 loan from CABS to start a potato farming project.

MPs led by Wadyajena embarked on their journey from a hotel in Nyanga at 11:00am accompanied by Ministry of Youth officials and journalists. They never reached Nyamurundira's farm.

Tired, hungry and dusty, Wadyajena and committee members returned to the hotel at around 8:00pm after a nine-hour drive on a mountainous rough road - for nothing.

"I suspect that the Youth ministry officials deliberately took us on wrong rough roads so that we get tired and fail to see Nyamurundira's purported potato project," Wadyajena said.

"We communicated with a youth officer who was on the ground through the phone, and he later told MPs that there was no potato project.

We then spoke to Nyamurundira's neighbour Cosmas Chirombe and he said he [Nyamurundira] was a cellphone farmer and that there were no potatoes being farmed. He said the only crop that was on the farm was maize, which was grown by Nyamurundira's mother for her own consumption."

The committee was told that Nyamurundira has not serviced the $4 500 loan.

In several other districts, MPs were shown pitiable projects and heard shocking tales of abuse of the funds by young people and institutions that benefitted.

At Nyahoni area in Chivhu, MPs travelled another long and rough road to visit a project named Ernest Kadungure Piggery, only to find empty pigsties. The Youth Development Fund had poured in $211 213 to support the project that was supposed to empower and employ youths in the area.

The money, which was accessed through the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) was made available to the project in 2009.

By December 2013 it had 325 pigs, but due to malnutrition the number decreased to 95.

Deputy director for economic empowerment in the Ministry of Youth, Tafi Greemas Mashonganyika who accompanied the MPs on the trip said at one time the project had more than 625 pigs. Today there is not even a single pig.

Kadungure Piggery has now been turned into a Vocational Youth Training Centre. During the visit by the committee to the piggery, several youths waited outside hoping to give oral evidence before the committee.

Outside, the youths told Goromonzi West MP Biata Nyamupinga that they had come to be given a chance to speak on the piggery project which they had hoped was going to uplift the unemployed youths in the area.

"The youths were very disappointed that there was no single pig at Kadungure. They hoped that the project would be able to train more youths to run piggery projects but it was poorly managed," Nyamupinga said.

The only successful projects that MPs saw during the two-week tour were a shoe-making project in Chivhu run by Munyaradzi Museke, a shoemaker living with disabilities.

Museke, who is on a wheelchair, got a $1 000 loan from CABS to start his shoe manufacturing business and is making a profit to the extent he has opened a grocer's shop out of the proceeds and has serviced his loan.

In Matabeleland North, there was a successful leather belt making project. In Masvingo, a young man who got a $1 000 loan is successfully manufacturing and supplying household chemicals to shops, though at a small-scale.

MPs also visited several chicken projects but at most of them, not a single chicken was found in the fowl runs. Forward Chademana of Smart Street in Mucheke high density surburb of Masvingo got a $3 000 loan for a chicken project in 2010 and at one time had 450 chickens, but the project died in 2015.

"It stalled because I could not compete with the low prices of eggs and chickens from Irvine's," said Chademana who has not repaid a cent.

Another youth in Masvingo, Sydney Makazhe got a $3 000 loan from CABS. Makazhe has a degree in agriculture and economics. He first opened an EcoCash project but it failed. At one time he had 300 chickens but he said they died during the rainy season. MPs found about 100 chicks at his chicken run.

In Matabeleland North, particularly in Victoria Falls, MPs found that many youths had furnished banks with fake addresses. They found that the youths that got loans of up to $1 000 were not resident at those places.

During public hearings with youths that benefitted, some turned violent and said the investigation by MPs was political and targeted Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere.

In Bindura, Wadyajena was threatened with assault by youths who told him that his committee was on a witch-hunt to embarrass Kasukuwere, the former Youth minister. The loans were distributed during his tenure.

Police had to be called in to protect MPs.

During a public hearing in Mucheke hall in Masvingo, some youths vowed they would never pay back the loans as they had nothing and were suffering.

A youth that benefitted from a $1 000 loan, Rocky Kamuzonda said a ministry of Youth official claimed $50 from uneducated youths that wanted to access the loans in order to write project proposals for them.

"We were asked to pay $15 at banks to open bank accounts yet we have no money. The money is also chewed up by bank charges and is supposed to be paid directly to suppliers like PG that are very expensive. At the end, we don't make a profit and cannot pay back," Kamuzonda said.

The youths said the high default rate in repaying the loans was due to failure by banks to work with ministry officials to follow up on the projects. Most beneficiaries had no business management training or financial acumen. Some were given the loans along political lines although they did not deserve them.

The Youth Development Fund constitution says the beneficiaries must be disadvantaged youths aged 18 to 35 years, but the criterion was not followed.

Old Mutual also put an amount of $1 million to the Youth Development Fund and 10 vehicles were bought so that they could be used to monitor the projects. In Masvingo, the vehicle was being used by the acting provincial head June Mbizvo. The vehicle had no log book and it was not clear if it was used for monitoring of youth projects or for Mbizvo's personal business.

In Mashonaland Central, Midlands and Mashonaland East, the vehicles that are Amarok double cabs were run down within six months.

The youth committee was not impressed and demanded documented proof of how much each vehicle cost in order to find out how the $1 million from Old Mutual was utilised. The documents are yet to be submitted to Parliament.

Youth ministry officials admitted before the committee that the projects were a massive failure due to lack of monitoring. They, however, blamed the banks for failing to work with the ministry to ensure that the youths ran their businesses well.

They said CBZ had higher repayment rates because the bank worked together with Ministry of Youth officers to follow up on payments.

However, CABS was said to have experienced very low repayment rates because of failure to work with the ministry servicing the loans.

During live public hearings held in Harare and which were aired on radio, members of the public that contributed demanded that a commission of inquiry be set up to investigate abuse of the Youth Development Fund.

They castigated the high levels of corruption witnessed in the management of the funds by both the Ministry of Youth and the banks.

"The process of disbursing the funds was not transparent and there was a high level of corruption. A commission of inquiry must be set up to investigate abuse of the funds," a caller said during the live public hearing.

Government was also castigated for dishing out loans on political basis. Some members of opposition parties that phoned in claimed they were discriminated and never got the loans.

Other contributors claimed there was a corrupt syndicate of bank officers who demanded 10% from the youth beneficiaries of the youth loans.

"If a project was authorised, some bank officials demanded 10% of the loan, and there was actually a syndicate of those corrupt bank officers."

Chairperson of the committee, Wadyajena said after the tour, the committee would table a report before Parliament and give recommendations on action to be taken.