24 Oct 2016

A member of the Presidential Inspectorate Team for the south region Mr Peter Siele has advised young people to take advantage of the available government programmes to improve their lives.
Speaking during a kgotla meeting he addressed in Tsabong last week, Mr Siele said statistics indicated that young people were still the hardest hit by poverty and unemployment despite the available citizen assistance programmes.
He argued that the structure of the nation’s economy may not allow for all the graduates to find employment in the public service.
 He said taking advantage of the available programmes could therefore afford them an opportunity to apply the skills they had acquired to eke out a living rather than waiting for an opening somewhere in an office.
The former minister of Local Government and Rural Development also stressed that government driven programmes were crucial to the empowerment of rural economies.
He also argued that taking advantage of the available programmes could enhance rural economies and help diversify the nation’s economy from tourism and minerals because they cut across all sectors.
“I therefore urge you because with all the skills you have acquired you can take advantage of this dispensation; our economy cannot solely rely on diamonds because commodity prices are going down,” he called.
Among the available programmes, he cited ISPAAD saying its spirit was to scale up efforts to attain national food sufficiency and security.
 Mr Siele further dismissed the perception that the Kgalagadi area was generally barren with regards to arable farming thus encouraged residents to also register and benefit.
Meanwhile, the district commissioner, Mr Rapetse Mathumo shared that 105 small stock projects in the area were funded through the poverty eradication initiative.
Mr Mathumo also revealed that 26 other projects were under Social and Community Development while four were under Gender Affairs.
He added that 62 other projects were financed through the Youth Development Fund (YDF).
The purpose of the meeting was to get feedback from the beneficiaries regarding the challenges that denied them graduation from poverty.
 Beneficiaries nonetheless had mixed feelings about the projects as YDF beneficiary, Boitumelo Setshwano of Boise Events shared her joy that her catering business was doing well.
She said she started her business from humble beginnings but know she has managed to construct a two-bed roomed house for herself with proceeds from her venture.
She also shared that she was repaying the loan well and was only left with P15 000 to pay.
The entrepreneur was also proud that he had employed four Batswana which she further described as complementing government efforts to create employment for citizens.
On the other side, another beneficiary Ms Catherine Villander, also in the catering business through S & CD packages said her business which started in 2014 had since collapsed.
She noted that she was not provided with all the necessary equipment from the word go; hence the collapse of her business.
She however noted that she had once benefited from a council tender that required her to provide catering services at the annual Khawa Dune Challenge event. ENDS