LOBAMBA-Some Members of Parliament (MPs) have demanded that chiefs be stripped off the responsibility of issuing umphakatsi stamps to aspiring young entrepreneurs.
Instead, they have suggested that the stamps should be accessible cheaply at the tinkhundla centres.
However, some had a different view, as they argued that it is not all chiefdoms where residents have to pay for the stamps.
This happened yesterday during the passing of the Finance Committee’s report on the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (Amendment) Regulations, 2025
During the debate of the report, the MPs raised concern over the fragmentation of youth empowerment programmes, inadequate funding and land insecurity, warning that these challenges continue to undermine efforts to address youth unemployment and promote entrepreneurship in Eswatini.
They called for a centralised governance strategy that would improve coordination between stakeholders, eliminate inefficiencies and ensure that resources intended for young people translated into tangible economic opportunities.
It was observed that youth empowerment initiatives remained severely underfunded despite young people constituting a significant proportion of the country’s population.
It noted that the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund reached only a small fraction of aspiring entrepreneurs, providing modest capital to a few hundred micro-enterprises while leaving tens of thousands of viable applicants without seed funding or operational capital.
The limited financial support, the MPs submitted, prevented youth-owned businesses from reaching the scale necessary to stimulate economic growth and absorb the growing number of school leavers entering the labour market annually.
Another major concern raised during the consultations was the difficulty young agricultural entrepreneurs experienced in accessing and retaining land.
The MPs noted that land insecurity remained one of the most significant structural barriers facing young farmers, with some experiencing interruptions to their farming activities because of land disputes.
Addressing the issue, Finance Committee Chairperson and Lobamba Lomdzala MP, Marwick Khumalo informed the MPs that Regulation 7 has been amended.
“The process will start at the chiefdom; it does not therefore say that this should begin with a stamp,” Khumalo said.
Khumalo said the issue has been addressed.
“There are many things that require stamps at chiefdoms. However, since the youth does not have the money, we cannot make them suffer. Inkhundla is the centre for the development of the country. This is purely about the development of the youth,” he said.
Meanwhile, the report states that during consultations, young people proposed that underutilized and vacant farmland be allocated to them to promote self-reliance and address unemployment and food insecurity.
They argued that fertile land lying idle could be transformed into productive agricultural hubs if placed in the hands of young farmers.
Through secure access to such land, they believed they could establish commercial crop and livestock enterprises, strengthen regional food supply chains and stimulate rural economic development.
Meanwhile, the proposed amendments to the regulations seek to address some of the operational challenges affecting the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund, particularly delays in processing loan applications.
