11 Dec 2017

Member of Parliament for Palapye, Mr Moiseraela Goya has officially opened the new Palapye Spar Supermarket at the newly built Palapye Junction Mall.

Speaking at the official opening on December 8, Mr Goya said Palapye provided an enabling environment for businesses.

He said Spar aimed not only to build attractive buildings and sell various merchandise as well as making profits, but also to make a strategic investment which produced a multiplier effect, as its impact rippled through local communities.

Mr Goya, who is also Assistant Minister of Basic Education, said the multiplier effect would in part be economic and would be measured in jobs.

He added that it would also be measured by the number of visitors and their resources and by the investments that they were encouraged to make.

“It should also be measured by the returns it generates for local investors, as it is their hope that as the business achieves stability and your shares are placed on the Botswana Stock Exchange, the welfare and empowerment of your employees will be paramount,” he said.

The ripple effects, he said, needed not be limited to the economic sector, adding that the impact could also be social through community social investments as a way of appreciating the community within which they operated.

Mr Goya said they would be proud if businesses exemplified the highest standards of corporate governance, sustainable community initiatives and human resource development as well as environmental protection.

He said they also believed that through the conducive working environment that they would provide and community activities that they would endeavour to support, Spar would become part of the Palapye community rather than a neighbour.

“Spar should help in the furtherance of the community’s aspirations,” he added.

He added that as Spar embraced the community’s aspirations, like many of its sister stores, its precincts would be a place where locals and foreigners regularly met to enrich the lives of all shoppers and visitors as they mingled around the area/

Mr Goya noted that Palapye used to be a rural and dusty small village centered on a railway station,with basically nothing but subsistence agriculture sustaining its economy.

He said the opening of Morupule Colliery Mine unlocked the potential of the town, with most of the purchasing power coming from mine employees.

He applauded Spar management and staff for providing the best customer service, and appealed to the managers to treat staff in an acceptable manner, and to make their place of work conducive for them to attract more customers to their shop.

Further, he said it was important for shops such as Spar to empower employees with skills instead of exploiting them as it was the case with other businesses.

Welcoming guests, Kgosi Isaac Lebang said it was the beginning of the new Palapye era which marked major developments that would benefit residents and surrounding communities.

Kgosi Lebang said investors should come to Palapye and that they were looking forward to seeing Palapye declared the third city, saying it would be determined by developments taking place.

Giving a vote of thanks, Palapye Administration Authority (PAA) chairperson, Mr Lesedi Phuthego said the opening of the shop would go a long way in line with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) convention that had shown the decline of employment on government.

“As government is faced with high challenges of unemployment, the opening of big chain shops will help avert this,” he said. ENDS