02 May 2016

The former Minister of Infrastructure Science and Technology, Mr Johnie Swartz has implored entrepreneurs to up their game by venturing into viable businesses that would assist the government to reduce the importation bill.

When chairing the Presidential Inspectorate task team that addressed poverty eradication and youth funded beneficiaries, in Lobatse, Mr Swartz said government spent close to P20 billion on importing consumables and non-consumables from neighbouring countries to close the demand gap.

He said the government had set up various programmes that were meant to elevate Batswana to be self-reliant but unfortunately  most programmes were failing.

Therefore, he said their visit was to inspect poverty eradication and youth funded development projects in Lobatse constituency.

He also said their aim was to identify progress made, record any project relapses and brainstorm on ideal strategies that could be incorporated to alleviate the existing challenges with the help of business communities.

He further said by inspecting the projects, they should be able to grasp any irregularities and could advise accordingly where possible.

Mr Swartz said it had been realised that some of the businesses relapsed due to reluctance, as some people did not make any effort to uplift their lives, but rather depended on government food baskets.

He urged all to take ownership of the government programmes, and build different industries to advance the country’s economy.

In her welcome remarks, Lobatse town Mayor, Ms Malebogo Kruger,said poverty eradication projects were not doing well in the district due to various reasons such as  inadequate and high costs of business space.

She mentioned that some trainers that were engaged to train and equip beneficiaries with skills and knowledge were expensive.

She also said there was lack of market for the locally produced goods, as the market was already saturated thus making it difficult for business operators to sell their products efficiently and effectively.

However, she said council leadership was working round the clock to mitigate the shortage of business space as they were in the process of giving them unused government old buildings to run their business from.

Ms Kruger further said they encouraged government departments to procure from local business to empower them.

When giving the project overview in Lobatse, deputy town clerk Mr Oganne Gontse said since the inception of poverty eradication programme in 2012, 1 149 beneficiaries had been mobilised, 816 assessed, only 413 qualified, while 333 were unavailable and only 191 managed to be funded.

He noted that council failed to assist  more people as they were running short of funds as some beneficiaries ended up being partially funded and they could not kick start their businesses on time.

He also mentioned that the challenges that the beneficiaries experienced in their businesses was lack of business space saying council had made arrangements for them to operate from their homes though the idea  was not being so practical as customers failed to easily access them.

He also said they were faced with unprecedented applications for similar projects that at the end saturated the market and pleaded with entrepreneurs to look for other business alternatives to avoid issues of market saturation.

As for Youth funded projects, he said 87 applications were approved and funded but only 54 were operating and two had been transferred and 29 had collapsed due to similar reasons noted with poverty eradication projects.

Mr Gontse said most youth lacked determination to pursue their businesses and ended up abandoning them.

In her comments nominated councillor  Ms Caroline Lesang said most of youth and other businesses in their locality were falling off due to lack of mentoring.

She said most of the youth were not mature to run businesses on their own, they needed some guidance on areas such as marketing, tendering processes and bookkeeping.

She also said there was delay in processing payments for delivered services from government departments, and that alone affected many business as they needed money to operate.

The residents said there was shortage of water for them to revive the backyard garden and also the government departments were not procuring from local businesses despite the enacted local procurement scheme.

In his closing remarks, deputy mayor, Mr Francis Mokwena urged the beneficiaries to outdo themselves in ensuring that all these programmes became effective for the next coming generations.

Mr Mokwena also encouraged all those whose business were not progressing well not to give up but keep on holding tight for them to flourish at the end. ENDS