The $10 million dollar Old Mutual Fund was launched late last year. It is part of Old Mutual’s indigenization and empowerment agreement with the government.
ZYC director, Livingstone Dzikira, told The Zimbabwean that mechanisms had been put in place to ensure beneficiaries did not convert the funds for their personal use.
Earlier this month, Dzikira was quoted as saying 70 percent of the youth funds had been abused. In light of this, he said strict measures had been put in place to guard against misuse by the youths.
“We have put in place measures to ensure the funds are not converted to any purposes which they are not meant for. For every project that is approved the money is being paid straight into the account of suppliers and there is no way that the youths will get to handle the money,” said Dzikira.
He added: “The youths will only get the necessary resources to run the projects after they had been paid for directly and this is a way to ensure the funds are not abused.”
So far, the number of beneficiaries of the Old Mutual funds were nearing 1,000 but he could not disclose how much money had been disbursed under the $10 million fund.
“We release the figures after every month end so we cannot disclose them as of now. The projects are being approved on a daily basis and youths from all the country’s provinces are benefiting,” he said.
Post published in: News