08 Aug 2017

Government, through the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Anglo American, Debswana and De Beers global sightholder sales to underpin the continued expansion of Tokafala Enterprise Development programme.

Tokafala is a collaborative effort aimed at promoting economic diversification and job creation in Botswana through personalised business mentoring, advisory support tailored to specific needs of enterprise and facilitating access to finance and markets for clients.

The signing of the new MoU establishes principles of cooperation under which partners will work together to continue expanding the programme to support the growth of small, micro and medium sized companies (SMMEs) in Botswana as well as capacity building of select government enterprise development institutions.

In her keynote address at the signing ceremony on August 7, permanent secretary in the ministry, Ms Peggy Serame said the MoU would reinforce cooperation among participating partners and lead to further possibilities to achieve common goals of creating globally competitive enterprises for economic diversification.

Ms Serame said the government’s collaboration with Anglo American through her ministry started in November 2012 and entailed exploring means of cooperation and partnership in the area of enterprise development in Botswana.

The discussions, she said, resulted in a three-year programme which started as a pilot programme in January 2014.

The Tokafala programme, the permanent secretary said, was aimed at accelerating SMME growth and supporting and building the capacity of some selected enterprise development institutions.

Ms Serame said the programme was implemented under the sole financial support of partners in the last three years, and that “financial provision has been made in NDP 11 to continue with the implementation of the programme.”

With a financial contribution of over P40 million, Ms Serame said she was confident that “the scope of the programme would increase and deliver enterprise development support across the breadth of the country.”

She noted that Tokafala targeted 600 micro enterprises, 445 small enterprises and nine to 15 medium enterprises with the objective of sustaining up to 6 000 jobs and creating around 400 new jobs.

“A number of enterprises, including those in the retail and hospitality, information and communication, services and consultancies and industrial goods and services sub-sectors have been enrolled in the programme. More than 70 per cent are small enterprises, 20 per cent are micro, while 10 per cent are medium enterprises,” she added.  

Since its launch, she said Tokafala had recorded impressive growth in terms of increased revenues and jobs, as per the rate of success recorded by the enterprises that had been enrolled in the mentorship and advisory services.

De Beers Botswana chairman and De Beers global sightholder sales residence director, Mr Neo Moroka also expressed gratitude that Tokafala had delivered significant success for a number of emerging businesses in Botswana.

The programme, Mr Moroka said, would help address economic challenges resulting from high unemployment, lack of entrepreneurial experience and disconnect between available jobs and skilled manpower would be accomplished.

While diamonds have been Botswana’s economic engine for several decades and will continue to play a vital role for decades more, he said diversification was a necessity for the nation. He added that initiatives such as Tokafala should play a central role in mobilising adequate resources towards transforming the country’s current socio-economic climate for the better.

“While a diamond is forever, unfortunately a diamond mine is not, so it is incumbent upon us to find ways to support other economic sectors and to nurture the spirit of industry in Botswana,” he added.

Mr Moroka explained that through collaborative efforts and investments of this nature, Anglo American, De Beers global sightholder sales and Debswana continued to be committed to working with key stakeholders and partners to support the socio-economic development objectives of the respective countries they operated in.

The first two years of Tokafala programme’s operation, he said, had seen an average revenue growth of 39 per cent among participating businesses, adding that micro-sized businesses were the biggest beneficiaries,  growing by an average of 260 per cent. ENDS