28 Mar 2018

Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) chief executive officer, Dr Raphael Dingalo said the business community is an important stakeholder in the economy in every district.

Dr Dingalo said this on March 26 during a stakeholder consultative business breakfast seminar aimed at creating  awareness and educating stakeholders about the mandate, functions and initiatives undertaken by HRDC.

In addition, Dr Dingalo said the workshop was meant to interact with stakeholders and get their view about effective ways of transforming Botswana from a natural resource to a human resource -based economy which would ultimately reduce the country’s dependency on minerals.

Dr Dingalo said the business community assisted in employment creation and offering of work place learning opportunities to graduates.

He said work place learning promoted and shaped employees’ attitudes in line with organizational culture and employees tended to develop a positive work ethics within the work place.

Mr Mothusi Masole  a representative of HRDC, told the business community that within HRDC  they had the department of funding which was  responsible for coordinating and supervising the funding mandate of HRDC.

He encouraged the attendants to utilise the department as it provided expert guidance and advice in funding and approved allocated budgets to institutions and ascertain timely disbursements of funds.

Mr Masole said  reimbursement of claims took up to four weeks and urged the attendants to attach all the documents requested from them so that their claims could be processed on time.

He said the department was faced with challenges on implementation of the fund as there was low commitment by the industry, fraud and accreditation issues as some business sent their employees to institutions which were not accredited by Botswana Qualification Authority thus urged them to always confirm if institutions were accredited before sending their employees for further studies.

For their part, the business community complained that HRDC was only based in Gaborone, something they said was costly for them to to travel to Gaborone to get assistance.

Therefore, the business community suggested that HRDC should conduct regular visits.  Ends