Youth and Small Enterprises Self Employment Fund claims to strengthen monitoring wing

The much controversial Youth and Small Enterprises Self Employment Fund (YSESEF) has claimed that it is planning to strengthen its monitoring wing to maintain financial discipline of funds disbursed by cooperatives.
The fund has distributed Rs 300 million seed money to young entrepreneurs through 549 cooperatives – that have been blamed to have distributed without any proper authentication on the recommendation of the UCPN-Maoist – across the country.

The fund will soon hire 60 people to monitor cooperatives, said vice president of the fund Prof Dr Punya Prasad Regmi. "They will monitor cooperatives and its loan distribution procedure," he said, claiming that the fund will not tolerate any misuse of funds by cooperative and entrepreneurs.

The fund will disburse the second installment – Rs 500 million– of the fund to cooperatives within a week, he informed.
However, the Fund’s earlier disbursement has failed to create employment as was targeted drawing lots of criticism.

According to Regmi, the fund is also developing a long-term plan to develop thousands of youth entrepreneurs. “We are developing a 10-year plan to utilise resources at the grassroots level," he added.

The fund is planning to launch 'One Village One Product' programme similar to the federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce (FNCCI). “The fund wants to expand the programme to all districts,” executive director at the fund Binod Prasad Guragai said, without elaborating the fund’s coordination with the FNCCI.

The fund will distribute about Rs 2 billion this year to support 30,000 youths to help them materialise their dream of being an entrepreneur.

Though, the fund is planning to expand its outreach to remote areas, the fund has been misused.