27 Mar 2014

The Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Keletso Rakhudu says a number of steps have been taken to facilitate implementation of the Citizen Economic Empowerment (CEE) policy since its approval by Parliament in 2012.

Answering a question in Parliament, he stated that various government ministries were engaged in February 2013 to give them guidance on its implementation and reporting of CEE programmes and initiatives.

“This was followed by a national stakeholders’ workshop in June 2013, to continue to sensitise all stakeholders on the policy aspects, and provide further guidance for implementation,” he said.

Mr Rakhudu added that sensitisation and guidance on CEE would continue.The MP of Shoshong,  Mr Phillip Makgalemele had asked the minister to state progress made in the implementation of CEE policy, and monitoring and evaluation instruments developed in order to ensure its implementation.

He also asked the assistant minister to state whether he will consider developing a CEE law to guide the many citizen empowerment initiatives given demands by some business,

“We have received progress reports on the implementation of the policy covering beneficiaries from various categories of programmes. For effective reporting and monitoring of the progress, we have provided ministries with a reporting format in the form of a matrix which indicates targets, milestones and progress achieved for the various citizen empowerment programmes under their portfolio,” said Mr Rakhudu.

He said 4 854 projects were under the Poverty Eradication Programme, 543 beneficiaries under the Youth Empowerment Programmes, 172 reserved for citizen manufacturing companies, while 76 citizen construction companies were awarded tenders to the value of P58.6 million.

Concerning the development of a CEE Law, Mr Rakhudu said no formal approach for such move has been communicated to his ministry.

“In this regard, my approach is to first stabilize implementation of the CEE policy while debate for a CEE will take its course to any logical conclusion,” said the assistant minister. Ends