By KETRA KALUNGA
THE money raised from the 50 fuel tankers for youths is being withheld until the process of verifying the rightful owners is completed, Minister of Youth, Sports, and Arts, Elvis Nkandu has said. Mr. Nkandu said the tankers are operating but the 30 percent dividend for the beneficiaries wouldn’t be given to them until the scrutinisation of the beneficiaries is concluded.
He said in an interview that the cooperatives that followed the right procedure of acquiring the tankers would be given their dividend without problems. “There is an agreement incubated with oil marketing companies.
They are not giving them their money because we have not finished auditing. Immediately we finish with auditing, those found with no issues will be given their 30 percent, currently being kept by the ministry,” he said.
Mr. Nkandu however said the ministry is not going to grab the tankers from the cooperatives that would be found wanting but would instead ask them to follow the right procedure. He said there are some beneficiary cooperatives with less than 10 members which benefitted from the youth empowerment programme which was against the laid down procedure. Mr. Nkandu also said some cooperatives had members above the recommended age of 35 years when the policy stipulated that the rightful age of beneficiaries is between 18 to 35 years.
He also said the 50 fuel tankers that the government recently procured, would be arriving in the country in two weeks’ time. The government bought the fuel tankers through a loan and paid 50 percent of the total amount as a down payment and 50 percent would be borne by the beneficiaries, said Mr. Nkandu.
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