19 Oct 2015

Government is keen to create an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs, the Vice President  Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi has said.

Officiating at a two-day Botswana Job Summit in Gaborone yesterday (October 19), Mr Masisi said government should not be entirely charged with the responsibility of creating jobs, noting that this should be extended to the private sector.

He said government would do anything within its power to make conditions of setting and expanding business less cumbersome as such the private sector should seize this opportunity by creating more profitable businesses and jobs for the masses.

He, however, said jobs could only be attainable and proliferate if there was successful and vibrant private sector. 

He therefore commended OneSource Consulting Company for having come with the idea of job summit as the meeting will come up with recommendations that will be beneficial to both the government and private sector in their endevour to create job opportunities.

Mr Masisi said it was disheartening to learn that some companies still held tight to the believe that some jobs could not be done by Batswana because they did not have requisite skills and as such entirely depended on foreign nationals to perform such jobs.

He therefore challenged the private sector to invest in training their employees so that they could have competent staff locally and enjoy immense rewards from healthy profits made from local staff and at the same time growth of business and job creation.

He noted that in the past, government had been committed to training for skilled manpower with the thinking that this will later translate into growth of the economy as well as job creation but little was realised.

The Vice President further noted that developed nations’ economies were largely driven by the robust private sector and therefore said the same was possible to be attained in Botswana if the business sector and the general populace could change their mindset.

Meanwhile Mr Masisi, who is charged with the duty to coordinate government development programmes, said Batswana should be ready to utilise the recently announced packages of the Economic Stimulus Programme, noting that this will inevitably address the problem of job scarcity. He said the government was also in the process of address bureaucratic red tape and other impediments in tendering procedures so as to enable all stakeholders benefit.

In this regard he called upon Batswana especially the youth to come forth and extensively exploit this programme especially in the areas of agriculture, construction, energy and tourism among others.

One of the directors of OneSource Consulting, Mr Lawrence Ookeditse, said they started envisaging this summit seven months ago and then approached other stakeholders in the economy to partner with them.

He said the fact that government had expressed political will to address lack of employment, everyone should come aboard and actively take part in the mission to find  solutions to this problem.

Mr Ookeditse therefore said that was why they together with Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) saw the need to draw a list of speakers from a wide range of economic business players from both local and abroad.

In the meantime, he said the recommendations from the  summit will be adopted by both government and the private sector  and consequently used as a leverage or a stepping stone in job creation. Ends