• Beneficiaries of empowerment funds must be capacitated first before receiving the funds.
• The money must be revolving.
• Beneficiaries need to take personal development to be able to run businesses professionally.

Youth Employment Creation Initiative has reaffirmed calls for government to ensure that beneficiaries of various empowerment funds are capacitated before receiving the money.
Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Organization Communications Director Japhet Sakala said beneficiaries of empowerment funds must be able to manage and run their businesses and pay back the money to government at some point.
Mr. Sakala stated that the Organization totally supports government’s intention to empower the youth and women but the money must be revolving so that others can also benefit.
“We support government’s intention to support and empower the youth but that money must be revolving, and the people that receive that empowerment should be capacitated first before receiving the empowerment funds so that they are able to manage and run their businesses and be able to return the money.”
“We do not want what has happened in the past to continue repeating itself so we are saying that the youth and women must be empowered,” Mr. Sakala said.
He stressed the need for government to train beneficiaries beyond empowerment so that they are ready to handle the money they receive.
“We need to have set criteria where there is training beyond empowerment that ensures that the beneficiaries are ready to handle the money that they receive from government,” he emphasized.
And Mr. Sakala advised the beneficiaries to put the money to good use and take
“The advice to the beneficiaries is that they need to put the money to good use, they need to take personal development to be able to run businesses professionally as an intentional investment in them.
Those who do not know the technical know-how of running a business should take it as an intentional investment in capacity development,” he stated.
Government has so far recovered over K17 million a in youth empowerment funds.