The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
THE Government is calling on women entrepreneurs in the country involved in various projects across sectors to send project proposals for funding consideration under the Women Development Fund.
A memorandum by the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development dated 28 February 2020 and signed by Permanent Secretary Mr Melusi Matshiya, which was seen by Sunday News Business called on women to submit their project proposals for this year.
“This serves as the first call for project proposal to be funded by the Women Development Fund in the 2020 fiscal year. The first 2020 call for project proposal will be targeting projects or business in the agriculture, mining, tourism, manufacturing and trade sectors,” read part of the memorandum.
It further stated that a total of 20 projects per province each valued at a maximum of $150 000 would be funded.
“The projects to be funded should be existing, viable and their products should have ready markets. New projects with potential to be viable should also be submitted for consideration. A total of 75 percent of the loan will be direct payments to suppliers and only 25 percent will be given in cash,” read the memo.
Beneficiaries are expected to undergo training on project management before loans are disbursed with approved projects being forwarded to People’s Own Savings Bank (POSB) for loan disbursement while monitoring and evaluation of the projects shall be conducted by the ministry and POSB staff.
“Periodic post disbursement inspection of projects shall be conducted by provincial district and ward level staff with monthly reports being generated,” said the ministry.
The deadline for acceptance of project proposals is 31 March with first preference vulnerable groups such as victims of gender-based violence, widows and women war veterans while it is mandatory that 20 percent of the funded projects should be from women war veterans.
Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Dr Sithembiso Nyoni said the fund, which has been in existence since 2010 has played a significant part in empowering and improving the livelihood of women and their families.
“The fund has done considerably well with women coming in as groups of three to five to access the facility. For example, there are three Harare women that accessed it for a brick moulding project. They bought equipment using the fund and produced bricks and sold them and thereafter remitted the loan and took another loan again for working capital and repaid yet again. Now, each one of them is running her own enterprise,” she said.
Dr Nyoni, however, appealed to beneficiaries of the fund to repay to enable the facility to cater for more applicants.
“I, however, appeal to women who access the fund to repay within the stipulated period because this facility is more of a revolving fund thus there is a need for them to put it to good use through embarking on viable and sustainable projects,” she said.
@DNsingo
