03 Nov 2015

Residents of Pallaroad in the Mahalapye East constituency have decried the lack of industrialization in their village despite being along the busy A1 Road.

The residents made the complaint during a kgotla meeting addressed by the Minister of Trade and Industry Mr Vincent Seretse recently.

They said they have to travel to Mahalapye to get their daily needs rather than getting them from the village. As such they appealed to the minister to help them lure investors and big companies to their village.

 When welcoming the minister, Kgosi April Ikothaeng said it was a very worrisome state of affairs which must be addressed urgently.

Kgosi Ikothaeng said despite his village having a small community, the minister should help lure investors from within and outside Botswana to their village.

He said their village had many investment opportunities including land where such businesses and shops could be set up. 

Sharing the sentiments, Village Development Committee chairperson Ms Segametsi Mangope said they needed investors in their village so that they did not have to travel to Mahalapye to get services and goods.

Ms Mangope said their village was just along the A1 road, there was a tarred road in the village and also the railway line passed through their village.

She said Pallaroad youth were reluctant to start businesses or form cooperatives so as to help curb unemployment and develop their village.

The VDC leader noted that young people would rather work for Ipelegeng and complete with elderly people for posts rather than take advantage of government initiatives which are created on their behalf.

Furthermore, she explained that there was once a cooperative in the village which sold cattle to Botswana Meat Commission on behalf of farmers, but since the commission went around the country to buy cattle from farmers the cooperative has collapsed.

She said in the end the cooperative building was rented out thereby benefiting only very few people from the rentals.

However, she noted that they had set up a 12 member committee in the village to find out ways of in which they could help revive the cooperative.

In his address, minister Seretse revealed that cooperatives had collapsed right across the country and that the structures were being rented out. 

He added that the government was aware and that transformation initiatives were underway so that Batswana could go back to their roots.

Mr Seretse said cooperatives were “very good” in the sense that they uplifted villages and also empowered residents; hence the government had found it fit to revive them.

He said as residents they should come up with different ideas of what they could do with their cooperative, adding that there were many business opportunities out there, citing bakery, tailoring or fashion design, amongst others.

 On other issues, he appealed to the youth to stand up and take advantage of government initiatives which are meant to empower them like the Youth Development Fund and many others.

He said the youth should not be reluctant to make use of such schemes because the government was still faced with high unemployed rate; hence the schemes were meant to address the challenge.

He said they should have dream projects and do something as the government was giving them P100 000 to fulfill those dreams with them paying back only P50 000.

Further, Mr Seretse explained about the Economic Stimulus Programme which was an attempt by the government to boost economic growth and lead the economy out of a recession or economic slowdown.

He said although the economy was not yet out of the woods, government was committed to creating jobs for Batswana, improvement of infrastructures, construction of classrooms and clinics which will help create employment.

He said the package would also targets tourism development, agricultural production, boost economic diversification through procuring domestic products as well as manufacturing.  Ends