25 May 2016

Some beneficiaries of government-funded projects have decried lack of support from government departments.

They said this during a meeting with the Presidential Inspectorate Task Team recently. One of the beneficiaries Ms Mary Olebile, who runs a cleaning services business said as small businesses they were failing to make profit because of stiff competition from established companies.

She said government departments preferred to engage the services of big companies and this left them in the lurch.

“They should give us first priority because our businesses need to grow and sustain themselves,” she said.

She also pleaded with the council management to give first priority to such beneficiaries when it came to leasing its premises.

She said this would also help them because private property rentals were exorbitant.

Another beneficiary of the Youth Development Fund Mr Bashingi Nkgare shared the sentiments. 

He said he was funded to start a catering business five months ago yet he had never been engaged to cater for any government function.

He said this lack of support made it difficult to pay the six employees in his business due to low profits.

Furthermore, he noted that there were some inconsistencies in implementing the new policy that stipulates that youth businesses should buy tender documents at half price.

The Jwaneng deputy town clerk for technical services Mr Masiela Mandoze said as a council they continued to empower government-funded businesses by giving them the opportunity to try their luck when tendering.

He also noted that marginalised groups such as the youth and people living with disabilities were given a better chance to qualify by applying the new policy which was in their favour.

“We give preference to businesses that are funded by the government and in most cases when we have functions we engage their services for catering,” he said.

The leader of the task team Mr Johnnie Swartz said their mandate was to acknowledge the challenges faced by projects that were funded through government programmes as well as initiatives such as the Economic Diversification Drive (EDD). 

He also said they were keen to get ideas on how these programmes could be improved.

He said despite being one of the government’s flagship programmes, the results of the EDD were not satisfactory. 

He said with this initiative, the government’s intention was to empower locals to grow the economy and reduce imports. 

He called on all stakeholders to work together to ensure the success of these programmes. ENDS