10 Jul 2017

The South-East District Council chairperson’s trust organised a benchmarking and service provider event dubbed Re Mono Fela event on Saturday at Boatle hosted by Tashy’s farm house. 

Speaking during the event, the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Mr Frans van der Westhuizen said benchmarking exercises were important in mapping ideas that could take organisations further.

Assistant minister noted that the benchmarking exercise initiative was a great step which needed to be highly appreciated. He added that the project needed to be nurtured to continue in future as there was also need to free up the youth and create a platform to express their opinions.

He said it was important for leaders and managers to delegate and involve the youth, so as to avoid over managing and over controlling, adding that there was need to remove all obstacles that might hinder the youth to express their opinions as well as limit their creativity to come up with ideas that would attract other countries to benchmark in Botswana.

The assistant minister noted that it was important for the youth to be investors instead of just consuming.

He said benchmarking initiatives gave people time to network and bring ideas together that could be helpful and also engage the youth who were the future leaders in an easy way where they were free to share their creative ideas of innovation to take organisations further .

He said it was key to allow the youthful officers to use their young generation mind and reach their full potentials as they were great thinkers with fresh minds.

For his part, the mayor for South-East District Council Mr Phenyo Segokgo noted that the whole reason for the event was to relax and network as well as coming up with possible ideas that would benefit the council. 

The mayor noted that various achievements for the chairperson’s Trust Fund included donation of bicycles to Mogobane Primary School as well as the donation of P5 000 to two schools, adding that the chairperson’s Trust Fund came up with ideas that were beneficial to the community such as replacing the chairperson’s bowl where a lot of money was spent on luxury but use the money instead on things that were more beneficial to the community. 

Mr Segokgo gave an insight of future plans that the council has which include pole advertising which will enable local business people to advertise their products.

He further said in three weeks’ time they will release an expression of interest so that the business community that has intentions in partnering with them can show up as they intend to pilot with four projects including a big mall called CBD in a 25 hectare land, to build a lodge and game park at Magope, to build student accommodation, a mall and a restaurant at Tlokweng that will be done by the commercial hub.

He urged private companies to come on board to help the Chairman’s Trust Fund to grow as with those projects they intend to create 5 000 job opportunities for the youth and also create revenue for the council at the same time to curb issues of potholes and street lights issues. ENDS