04 Jul 2022

Job creation remains a top priority for Botswana, with tourism identified as one of the engines for its creation and from which government wants to see more Batswana benefitting, minister of environment and tourism minister Ms Ms Phildah Kereng has said.

She was speaking to journalists at the end of the Makgadikgadi Epic in Sowa on Saturday.

Minister Kereng said in its effort to create more jobs, even as the tourism industry revived from COVID-19 impact, government had begun creating and facilitating creation of value-chains around the sector, with Makgadikgadi Epic and Khawa Dune Challenge already yielding promising results.

“We are, in line with the President’s Reset agenda, deliberately creating opportunities for Batswana to benefit from the ensuing value chains whose creation we are facilitating through inter-ministerial and interdepartmental partnerships.” 

She went on: “So when it comes to procurement, we made a deliberate decision that we will empower our people; ensure opportunities exist for them to participate.” 

Provision of VIP tents, marquee tents, toilets, sanitisers, water, and catering were some of the opportunities that they had ensured became available for Batswana, especially young people, either by procuring from them or providing multiple stalls for them to do their business. 

Minister Kereng gave the example of a youth from Khwai, for whom they deliberately gave the opportunity to provide VIP tents at the Khawa Dune Challenge event.

“Now, for the first time ever we procured our Makgadikgadi Epic jackets from a young Motswana person in Gaborone. The President was quite impressed with the quality of the jacket, which shows we no longer need to be getting these services from South Africa, as our people can provide equally excellent quality. We are serious about expanding opportunities for livelihood, for small enterprises and the informal sector,” she said.

That, she added included facilitating residents of the areas in which the events were taking place to participate, by among other things enlisting the help of expert services to guide them. She gave the example of culinary services, where the locals would be trained in food handling and proper cooking, for service excellence. 

Turning to the Makgadikgadi Epic, she said worth celebrating was a partnership that they started between Botswana Tourism Organisation and Botswana Meat Commission and Chefs Association of Botswana, whereby they introduced food tourism as one of the value chains, built on Botswana beef. 

Minister Kereng, said her, would with the intention to create more jobs, would be increasing the number of events at the Makgadikgadi Epic and Khawa Dune Challenge events. With specific reference to Makgadikgadi she said: “The idea, is to develop Makgadikgadi, as the cradle of humankind to a place where it will feature alongside Okavango and Kasane.” 

In that regard, her ministry was mulling having the event run more than once a year.

“Indeed, that would give Batswana who want to trade in the area, assurance that their businesses would not collapse for lack of customers,” she said.

Her ministry did not plan to stop there, she said.“Tourism, has been mainly confined to Okavango and Chobe. We now want to expand beyond the swamps to other areas, with a view to developing their tourism offering, and creating jobs in the process,” she said .ENDS