31 Jan 2021

Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) through its industry support fund has loaned around P50 million to help businesses.  

Updating the media in Gaborone on January 28, the corporation’s Investment Principal Officer, Mr Modise Lekone said the support  fund, established in November 2020, loaned the money to companies with a turnover of over P50 million annually at an interest rate of 5.25 per cent.

He said the P50 million was against a government fund allocation of P300 million to BDC geared towards support for high grossing businesses.

He said the corporation administered this fund to companies across identified sectors such as hospitality and tourism, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), manufacturing and financial services.

According to Mr Lekone the identified sectors were listed in the country’s Economic Recovery Transformation plan and had capacity for import substitution as well as high employment potential.

He further noted that the loans did not require any security across all sectors, noting that the corporation had a diligent assessment process against which all applications would be considered in order to guarantee pay back.

He said they were currently in the process of reviewing over 16 000 applications from local owned and international businesses, adding that the priority was to give more consideration to locally owned enterprises in order to resuscitate the economy and job creation.

Meanwhile Head of Corporate Affairs and Strategy Ms Boitshwarelo Lebang-Kgetsi also noted that companies would be given a six months grace period before payment and would be allowed to pay back their loans within a 30-months period.

She said one of the loan conditions was that beneficiaries should not retrench staff over the repayment period so as to improve the security of jobs in the country.

Ms Lebang-Kgetsi also noted that their investment assessment criteria was robust allowing for thorough assessment with a high degree of certainty over loan repayment.

She expressed hope that the corporation would be able to loan out all the funds by June 2021, noting that the loans had a significant bearing on the economic recovery of the country particularly as different institutions and financial centres grappled with COVID 19.

Ms Lebang-Kgetsi appealed to loan applicants to follow all the set guidelines in order to benefit from the fund. ends