16 Mar 2015

Approaching the half door leading into Atlamelang Bakery, which is adjacent to Kanye Police Station, the hitherto reigning tranquility is shattered by someone banging trays.

A huge dough mixer, which sounds rather like a cement mixing machine can be heard as one gets closer, and the air is fragranted with the smell of baking bread enough to drive one crazy with craving.

Entering the baking workshop itself, it is roomy and contains a couple of huge dough mixers, a steel tower comprising six separate ovens, two long work tables and racks containing trays of bread. Workers wearing white overalls, boots and berets are busy moving up and down doing what they are supposed to be doing.

However, the scenario at Atlamelang Bakery belies the fact that the business is one of the baking projects in the Southern District that need government intervention to stop them from collapse.

Whereas the bakery, one of the largest entrants in the baking business in Kanye, is on the verge of collapse, with workers about to lose their jobs, others have already been closed due to lack of funds or mismanagement.

In an interview recently, the managing director, Ms Joyce Coangae said the collapse of her bakery would be a big blow to employment creation efforts. She said baking was one of the most viable sectors at present and decried the arrival of chain shops in Botswana which have led to the collapse of small local businesses.

She said prices of bread at local chain shops such as Choppies, Spar, Shoppers and ShopRite were so low that buyers preferred to buy from them. Local bakeries used to sell a loaf of bread for P8.00, but since the chain shops opened in Kanye a loaf of bread goes for P4.95.

“People want cheaper prices, so we can’t compete with shops like Choppies; Batswana like cheap and free things,” she pointed out, adding that most bakeries relied on tenders from the government, but there was the problem of scrambling for such tenders which often leads to companies reducing costing just to win a tender.

She said after winning tenders the government also takes too long to pay them. She added that a bakery licence did not allow them to sell anything else apart from bread. 

She said her 31-year-old bakery used to bake 1 300 loaves of bread a day with 38 employees, but today it has been reduced to 500 and only eight employees, yet it was supposed to supply schools after winning tenders. 

Ms Coagae said challenges included fuel for transportation and buying bread ingredients from South Africa at high costs, which might lead to her closing doors as her business was not doing well.

Other bakery businesses around Kanye are already out of business and it was difficult to locate their owners for their comment. However, one bakery owner who refused to reveal his name said he closed his bakery business in preference for a Chibuku depot.

“Chibuku is doing well compared to bakery,” he said.

However most of the customers interviewed said they preferred fresh and soft bread from Spar and Choppies which sold for less than P5. 

Ms Bakang Moseki of Kanye said she purchased bread at Choppies or Spar because the prices were reasonable rather than local bakeries which sold crusty bread at high prices. She said bread needed to be soft and tasteful.

“Batswana batho ba Modimo ba turisa borotho le mo dimausung tota, go botoka go reka ko Mongala Mall, borotho ja bone bo topetswe sukiri, fa gongwe letswai ao! Bangwaketse,”meaning Batswana baked distasteful and expensive bread which was either salty or sugary. 

Mr Odirile Nkemelang complained that even after the government had removed VAT from flour, local bakeries were still expensive.

In Botswana, the government has put in place different programmes that are meant to empower people economically and develop rural areas. 

These include CEDA, NDB, ISPAAD, LEA and poverty eradication programmes that provide loans and grants because commercial banks might consider such investment risky under the environmental climate and market conditions in Botswana.

Despite the availability of such programmes, people continue to complain about associated processes, saying they were  difficult to meet.  ENDS