THE empowerment training programmes being run by Zanu-PF for its youths do not necessarily automatically guarantee the graduates funds, the director for indigenisation and economic empowerment in the party has said.

The party has traditionally carried out empowerment training programmes for youth and community development. However, with the concurrent implementation of the indigenisation programme, the two are being viewed as combined.

In an interview with the Herald Business, the director of indigenisation and economic empowerment in the party, Mr Kurai Masenyama, said the misconception was causing problems because the trainees were expecting funding as soon as they graduated.

"Zimbabwe has a high literacy rate, but is rather limited in terms of the requisite economic/business skills, hence we carry out skills training in this respect for our youth members.

"In our view, empowerment comes in two forms, training and finance. It is unfortunate, however, that people have begun to assume that as soon as they receive the training they automatically get access to funding, which is not the case."Training itself is a form of empowerment," he said.

Mr Masenyama added that companies in compliance with the indigenisation programme also hoped the training would capacitate the youth with know-how on how to benefit from some outcomes of the indigenisation programme such as community share ownership schemes that are being set-up.

Youths, however, can individually apply for funding under the Youth Development Fund, which as at the close of last year had benefited over 650 youths and youth organisations/companies from across the country.

The fund, which was set up by the Government through the Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment, is administered through youth empowerment facilities managed by a number of local banks.

The youth empowerment facility provides funds for capital expenditure loans and project finance, and working capital finance including short-term loans, debt factoring, order finance, invoice discounting and guarantees. The funds are essentially bank loans at an interest rate of 10 percent per annum and are repaid as per loan disbursement agreement.