18 Sep 2017

The Citizen Entrepreneurship Development Agency (CEDA) has been recognised as the best performing parastatal organisation and the most Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) compliant parastatal under the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry.

In an interview during the ministry’s excellence awards on Friday, CEDA chief executive officer, Mr Thabo Thamane attributed the award to hard work, teamwork and excellent industrial relations among all employees within the agency.

He said good industrial relations reduced disputes in the work place and ensured continuity of production and service delivery.

Mr Thamane said healthy industrial relations were key to the progress and success of developing the country since resources were fully utilised resulting in maximum production.

He highlighted that good industrial relations improved the morale of employees since they worked with great zeal, and with the feeling that their interests were similar to that of the employer.

He credited CEDA employees and its board for being result orientated in ensuring that the agency made efforts of making a positive impact in the lives of many Batswana.

Mr Thamani noted that CEDA has a strong robust strategy underpinned by what he referred to as financial sustainability.

He said the agency was looking for good investments and ways in which it could be independently sustainable during difficult economic times in order to balance between start up businesses and expansions.

CEDA, he said, would continue to unveil new products such as the recently launched Mabogo Dinku scheme geared towards empowering ordinary citizens who were in the past regarded as unbanked.

He said the Mabogo Dinku scheme could be regarded as one of the best products that the agency had ever launched, as it had boosted the agency’s collection to over 125 per cent and had disbursed over P4.5 million since its inception.

As a way of spreading its contribution to the country’s economy to greater heights, Mr Thamane said CEDA would in the near future fund cooperatives, adding that a new product geared towards cattle posts funding would also be launched in the future.

He applauded the introduction of the agency’s mobile office units, saying it had enabled them to reach out to all Batswana in areas where the agency had no permanent office structures.

The mobile offices, he said, had contributed immensely in assisting the agency to reach the 10 per cent yearly portfolio growth; hence they saw it fit to introduce another mobile office truck to access sandy terrains to assist Batswana. Ends