EZULWINI – Youth empowerment must go beyond providing business loans to building a stronger local manufacturing sector capable of reducing Eswatini’s reliance on imported products, according to Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF) Chief Executive Officer Mandla Nkambule.
Nkambule made the remarks during the presentation of the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (Amendment) Regulations, 2026, to the Senate Finance Committee at the Central Bank in Ezulwini.
He said the dominance of imported products on supermarket shelves demonstrated the need for greater investment in local production and opportunities for young entrepreneurs to manufacture goods locally. “The status of the situation is visible on the supermarket shelves, a lot of products are imported,” he said.
Nkambule said youth empowerment should be linked to developing enterprises that could produce goods for the domestic market, creating opportunities for young people to participate in manufacturing rather than relying solely on trading and other business activities.
He said strengthening the sector would require support for young entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas, particularly in developing the capacity to produce goods that meet acceptable standards. Nkambule noted that small and medium-sized enterprises in urban areas benefited from established structures and incubation programmes designed to help them develop their businesses. However, he questioned whether young people in rural communities were receiving comparable opportunities and support. “A lot is happening to capacitate SMEs in urban areas, structures are set up to incubate them but what about the ones in the rural areas? We need to make sure that those standards are maintained and they get the same opportunities,” he said.
Nkambule added that rural entrepreneurs needed access to capacity-building initiatives that would enable them to improve the quality of their products and compete with businesses based in urban centres.
The proposed amendments to the YERF regulations also seek to change the interest rate applicable to loans issued by the fund. Nkambule said the current prime-linked rate stood at 2 per cent for young borrowers, while the fund proposed capping the interest rate at 5 per cent per annum.
He said the proposed rate had been informed by benchmarking against other African countries. The proposed changes were presented to senators for consideration as the fund seeks to strengthen its approach to financing youth-owned enterprises.
Nkambule’s remarks placed emphasis on the need to link youth financing with productive economic activity, particularly manufacturing, while ensuring that entrepreneurs in rural communities are not excluded from the support structures available to their urban counterparts.
The CEO said developing local manufacturing and improving access to enterprise support would be important in expanding opportunities for young people and strengthening the country’s productive capacity.
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