YOUTH BUSINESS LOANS APPROVED

MBABANE – The Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector is set for a major boom.  This follows the approval of 49 loan applications by the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF) which has approved 49 loan applications worth E2.8 million, which are anticipated to create 120 new job opportunities.

YERF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bhekizwe Maziya, disclosed that most of the applications which have been given the green light were in the services category where 18 businesses will receive funding. He mentioned that other sectors which received funding were agribusiness (14), manufacturing (8), retail (5) and construction (4).

Maziya explained that the first batch of loan applications were opened August 2018 and closed September 2018.
He clarified that since the closing date, the fund came across some problems that then caused the delay.
Maziya said the delay was caused by the approval process of the company.

Since the fund was suspended for a while, this was their first opening as their come back, and as they were processing they discovered some loopholes and they had to fix them as they process the loan applications.

“There were a lot of gaps in the applications. Instead of deferring the applications and looking at the potential of other business ideas, the fund decided to help the applicants to make their ideas better, and get the right documents to attach.

Also, the fund underestimated the time for field visits to see where the business happens or will happen. All applications forwarded to IDCE needed the field visits and that consumed a lot of time,” Maziya explained.

The CEO said YERF needed to ensure that approved loans were quality loans and the businesses funded would be viable enough for the applicants to repay the money and even create jobs for other youth.
A total of 269 members of the youth were on the run to get a slice in the E7 million ‘cake’ which has been availed by the YERF as credit to either start or upgrade their businesses.

These applications were received from emaSwati between the ages of 18 to 35 years old.
It was explained that the received credit applications were mostly agri-business (37 per cent), services (20 per cent), hospitality (12 per cent), manufacturing (10 per cent) and retail (nine per cent) among others.

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