21 May 2019

Chobe District Council chairperson, Mr Paul Chabaesele says 11 youth projects were approved during the just-ended financial year.

Speaking at the beginning of a full council meeting on May 20, Councillor Chabaesele said a total of 16 proposals were received by the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development in Chobe for the last financial year and 11 were approved for funding.

Out of the approved projects, eight have commenced operations while two are finalising their preparations, adding that one youth returned the funds in preference for furthering his studies as he had received scholarship.

Councillor Chabaesele said once operational, the projects would create 32 job opportunities.

He noted that through monitoring of the youth projects there had been changes in the number of youth paying their loans to the government and already loan payments for five projects had been settled.

“During the 2018/19 financial year, P101 589 has been collected through loan repayment and more is expected,” he said.

Still on MYSC, Councillor Chabaesele said as part of government’s mandate to provide opportunities for people to play sport for overall physical activity, a community outdoor gym was mounted in Plateau and handed over to the community at no cost.

Regarding the Local Enterprise Authority, the council chairperson said 82 new micro enterprises were registered while 10 were registered under the small and medium enterprises.

He said LEA through its enterprise and entrepreneurship development, assisted 24 start-ups with business plan development, of which 15 were funded at the tune of over P14 million with the tourism sector getting the largest share of over P10 million followed by manufacturing with slightly over P3 million and services and agriculture getting the rest.

The district continues to see more investment skewed towards tourism at 69.89 per cent, which is also the highest contributor in terms of revenue generation in the district, he said.

“We are seeing more Batswana entering the tourism sector and it is commendable and encouraging,” he said.

Councillor Chabaesele said the tourism and services industry had proven to be key in employment creation and in the last financial year, all sectors created 47 jobs with 22 in the tourism sector, 17 services sector, five and three in manufacturing and agriculture sectors respectively.

On the economic outlook, he called for the joint responsibility to strengthen the resilience of the local economy, adding that there was need to ensure there was creation of a diverse revenue base, create sustainable employment opportunities, build resilient infrastructure and also increase participation of the private sector in the local economy.

He called for the prudent financial management practices in respect of both allocated recurrent and development budgets across the different ministries in the current financial year and beyond.

On inclusive political leadership, Councillor Chabaesele said his district was chosen by the Swedish Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) to represent the country during the inception workshop, which was held from May 14-16 in Lusaka, Zambia.

He said the workshop promoted mutual learning and sharing of best practices among participants and aimed to increase participants’ capacity to engage in multi stakeholder collaboration.

“The Chobe District participants used the logical framework approach to identify lack of waste recycling as a problem in the district and the need for all interested and affected parties to be brought on board in solving the identified problem.

He said the Chobe District Council was encouraged to realise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Other African municipalities that participated were from Namibia, Kenya and Zambia. ENDS