29 Dec 2016

Mr Keorapetse Sesiane appears a shy man, the one who would hardly give someone eye contact, or sustain it if he happens to gather his guts to even glance.
His modestly furnished and well-kept office boasts of a computer, well-filed office cabinet, visitors’ couch and a laptop among others.
Sensing roving eyes from his visitors, he explains, “this furniture is part of the package that I bought outside the YDF funding,” he said without lifting his eyes off his laptop, just like he does throughout the interview.
Having started a promising milling business in Letlhakeng that goes by the name Sikhi Milling, Mr Sesiane said his future in the industry looks bright as pearls.
“In 10 years’ time I foresee the business having grown big.  I want to open a fully-fledged factory that processes other food stuffs like samp, sugar and rice.  We are already planning to open distribution centres in Maun, Serowe and Gaborone to serve our market in other regions of the country,” he said as he settled.
Despite having already gotten well established, his business does not span many years as he started operating only this year. An accountant by profession, Sesiane first worked at Gaborone Academy of Education for five years as an accounts supervisor before quitting to join Entle Milling in Molepolole as a production manager.
As lady luck would have it, his new job awoke in him the long-lying passion that he had not been aware of.
“All of a sudden I started developing interest in the milling industry to the extent at I would align and mingle with the players in the industry for mentoring and pursuit of knowledge.
Then after I was satisfied that this was the right path for me I quit my job in 2015 and applied for funding at the then Ministry of Youth Sport and Culture,” he said.
Sesiane said the following year his application was approved and he was funded to the tune of P100 000, and he immediately started his operations.
Business men hardly concede that they are doing well, perhaps for fear of alerting competitors who would swoop like vultures, but Sesiane is so confident in his business that he does not have fears of any business usurping his market.
“I like to feed Batswana and my passion makes me tick. Competition with other big players in the industry does not scare me because the market is still too big to be saturated.
Batswana really love and consume sorghum meal and the demand is very high,” he said.
With a staff complement of five, Sikhi Milling currently deals only in milling sorghum and packaging it for sale to mostly supermarkets, but Sesiane said they have plans to add other products in the near future.
At the moment they only sell in packages of 10kg.
“This is because most of the businesses I supply prefer the 10kgs. We are however, planning to make 5kg and 2.5kg packages next year so that we will be able to sell even to individuals,” he said.
He said at the moment, individual buyers are not that much and mostly includes farmers who come to buy bran for their livestock.
With the country having struggled with drought over the years and realising insufficient harvest, one would think that sorghum would be difficult to find, but Sesiane said he is reliably supplied by the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board and ODL Investments from Goodhope.
He also said that he is in contact with locals farmers to supply him, provided that their supply will meet the Botswana Bureau of Standards requirements.
His market stretches around the villages in the Letlhakeng vicinity, and he said his biggest single client so far is Choppies Supermarkets.
Sesiane said that his business has managed to thrive because of the active marketing team.
He said they do not just supply their clients and disappear, but that they usually keep in touch with the supermarkets to ensure that their product has been packed well in the shelves and clean so as to be appealing to customers.
“We are in constant touch with our product even when it is in the supermarkets.
We only part with it when it reaches individual buyers at their homes,” he said.
It has become a common practice that youth who have been funded through government programmes often abandon their projects at the first sight of challenges, but Sesiane said abandoning his project never crosses his mind, and that even if he wanted to, he has no reason to do so at the moment.
“We are not a struggling business and ever since establishment, we have never experienced challenges such as failure to pay employees or rent,” he said, and revealed that he is open to any serious business partner who is willing to invest in Sikhi Milling to take it to even bigger heights.
Like American Industrialist, Henry Ford put it; “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business”.
New as it is, Sikhi Milling has already started extending its compassionate hand to the community.
It once sponsored the prizes for best performing students in Mathematics in all grades at Sesung Primary School prize giving ceremony.
The intention, Sesiane said, is to fully adopt the school in the near future.
The name of the business has its roots from his origins.
A sad story that he is reluctant to tell, Sesiane only highlights that he learnt, albeit very late in his life that his father originated from Maratswane settlement near Malwelwe, about 20 km from Letlhakeng.
He said near this settlement exists a cluster of ploughing fields called Sikhi, after a cluster of a shrub species common in the area.
To his fellow youth, the 31-year old Sesiane advised them to have passion in what they do and not just apply for funds just because they are readily available, and that they should learn to seek inspiration and advice from those already established in the type of business they want to venture into.
Modest as he is, Sesiane would not want to blow his own trumpet about his abilities as a businessman, instead referring us to his former employer at Entle Millings.
Ms Karabo Radipodi said under her employ, Sesiane was a hardworking person whom you could trust to see to the end any task he was given.
“We employed him as a production manager, but because of his hard work and love of the job, he ended up doing virtually everything there was to be done in the business.
He is the kind of an employee any employer would not want to lose,” she said of her close to a year working relationship with Sesiane. Ms Radipodi said that even up to now she and Sesiane are still in contact and help each other in their businesses, especially when one of them has an order that they cannot fully supply and needs the other’s backup. ENDS