14 Aug 2013

Parliament has been told that the Ministry of Trade and Industry, through the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA), provides various business advisory services to all Batswana, including the youth.

Answering a question in Parliament on behalf of the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mrs Dorcus Makgatho-Malesu, the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Nonofo Molefhi, said the current LEA portfolio of clients comprises 40 per cent youth, both at the 13 LEA branches and the four business incubators.

Mr Molefhi said since 2007, LEA had assisted youth with 296 business plans, adding that the advisory services that LEA provided include, amongst others, facilitation with business development. However, he said it must be noted that LEA did not prepare business plans for the clients but only assisted the client to do so.

He said a client was expected to develop a draft business plan and then submit the draft to LEA for finalisation. This was because the client would be running the business and so they must own the business plan. Notwithstanding the above, Minister Molefhi said the extent of provision of assistance with business plan development by LEA varied depending on the level of ability to compute a business plan.

Where a client did not know how to prepare a business plan, LEA assisted by providing training programmes such as entrepreneurship development training and business plan development training.

He said the entrepreneurship development training course, which normally lasted for five days; the course had a business planning component which equipped the youth with skills of how to prepare a winning/bankable business plan.

The business plan development training, which lasted for three days, covered all aspects of comprehensive and bankable business plan that is in line with the requirements of various funding institutions.  

Minister Molefhi said in instances where the nature of the business might be complex and the client might have difficulties in developing the business plan after being trained, LEA would refer the client to one of the business development service providers to assist the client to develop the business plan.

MP for Kanye South, Mr Abraham Kesupile had asked the minister if he was aware that youth still experienced serious difficulties to raise bankable business proposals because they could not afford relevant expertise, and if so, what he will do to assist them. Ends