19 Feb 2015

The Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Vincent Seretse says his ministry has issued 1 150 local enterprises with EDD certificates under the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) programme.

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, February 18 when tabling his ministry’s 2015/16 budget, Mr Seretse outlined that 425 of those enterprises are in the business of manufacturing, 702 are service providers, while 23 are agricultural producers.

He said 82 per cent of the enterprises are small scale, while all of the 1 150 employ a combined figure of 34 861 people.

The assistant minister revealed that since the inception of EDD in April 2010, goods and services worth P7.238 billion have been purchased from local manufacturers and service providers.  

“Government continues to prioritise on economic growth and diversification through promotion of local production as well as consumption of locally produced goods and services,” he told Parliament.

Mr Seretse tabled a total budget of P946.383 million for his ministry, which includes P925, 383, 410 recurrent and P21, 000, 000 development budgets.

He said P743, 253, 920 from the recurrent budget would be spent by parastatals under his ministry. These are the Botswana Bureau of Standards, Botswana Investment and Trade Centre, Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency, Competition Authority, Gambling Authority, Local Enterprise Authority, SPEDU, and Companies and Intellectual Property Authority.

He added that the P21 million development monies would be shared by the ministry’s computerisation, consultancies, and infrastructure and facilities projects.

Debating the budget proposal, the MP for Gaborone Bonnington South, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe raised a concern that the Ministry of Trade and Industry seems to lack clarity on what it intends to do to achieve economic growth.

He also said the ministry needs to have tangible milestones, targets and timelines that could assist it to monitor the progress the country was making in terms of developing its economy.

The Umbrella for Democratic Change MP also urged the ministry to focus on achieving sustainable economy activity by citizens.

He said while the ministry was doing the right thing by clustering economic sectors, it had to be clear on how many entrepreneurs Botswana was aiming to produce, with timeliness, and ensure that the entrepreneurs had access to capital.

The MP for Gaborone North, Mr Haskings Nkaigwa asked the Ministry of Trade and Industry to craft a law regulating prices of goods in Botswana. 

He said the absence of such law has resulted with retailers hiking prices of goods, which disadvantages the customer.

“Lack of a price regulation policy is bad for our country,” he said.

The MP also said laws that support participation of indigenous Batswana in business should be made to correct the current situation where neutralised Batswana are controlling most sectors of the economy.

The MP for Tati West, Mr Biggie Butale shared the same view with Mr Nkaigwa, saying government needs to assist Batswana to play a meaningful role in the ‘booming economy’ of the country. 

He also said the country should focus on creating a business environment that would lead to a lot of successful business people developing in Botswana.

The MP for Shoshong, Mr Phillip Makgalemele asked the ministry to devise a strategy by which investors could be encouraged to set up businesses in rural areas. 

“Having investors set up businesses in rural areas will create employment opportunities there.

 There will be more jobs and reduction of poverty in rural areas and people will be less inclined to migrate to towns to look for employment,” the MP said.

He also said the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency and Botswana Development Corporation should be urged to develop packages for financing cooperatives because the cooperatives face challenges of lack of funds.  ENDS