28 Nov 2022

The enactment of an Act of Parliament to facilitate youth entrepreneurs, establishment of an insolvency fund as well as availing of entrepreneurship training facilities are some of the resolutions the two-day Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) national youth policy forum adopted.

On its second day of business on Saturday, the forum adopted a proposal by Mahalapye West constituency for government to enact a Small Business Investment Act, pursuant to which a Small Business Investment Company would be created to bridge the gap between the funding requirements of the Youth Development Fund (YDF) and those of the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA).

Sharing the resolutions after their adoption in Serowe on Saturday, BDP National Youth executive committee chairperson Cllr Collen Mochotlhi said according to the proposal, the Small Business Investment Company would exist to extend to small youth-owned businesses, higher funding thresholds with minimal security requirements.

This, he said, would bridge the gap between the P100 000 YDF funding limit and the CEDA requirements, which the young entrepreneurs often struggled to meet.

Mr Mochotlhi said the other proposal that was given the green light was the one calling for the establishment of an insolvency fund, the bulk of whose work would be to assist youth-owned businesses.

“Government must establish the insolvency fund, as per Section 462 of the Companies Act. 70 per cent of the insolvency fund must be dedicated to insolvent companies owned by the youth,” he spelt out the proposal, explaining that the fund would come in handy to help financially distressed youth-owned companies.

Sharing yet another Mahalapye West proposal that sailed through, he mentioned the call for government to establish and avail to the youth technical, vocational and entrepreneurship training facilities.

In addition to those, he said there was need to create an enabling environment for Public Private Partnerships that had a bias towards youth development, adding further that the adoption of community-based skills training programmes through the setting up of village-level polytechnics and business incubation and multi-purpose training centres for the youth would spur on the pace of youth empowerment and development.

Mr Mochotlhi said the party youth from Lobatse suggested that quotas be set to guarantee consistent levels of youth representation in leadership positions across the spectrum of leadership roles available.

He said the proposal was adopted alongside one requesting for youth to be facilitated to assume political office, with particular bias towards them making it into Parliament, where their voice in shaping Botswana’s future through participation in legislative processes would be more audible.

The Lobatse youth, he said, also asked for the law to set timelines for the implementation of all policies and that a special programme, whose purpose would be to communicate policies to the youth to enhance their participation in national development, should be enforced.

Palapye BDP youth delegates tabled a request for the availing of professional business services at a nominal fee to improve youth-owned businesses chances of survival.

He said access to corporate services which large consulting firms offered at high fees was out of reach for many youth-owned businesses, hence the need for a Business Process Outsourcing Park to be set up specifically to support young entrepreneurs.

Earlier when outlining the forum’s objectives, the chairperson had explained that the resolutions that would see the light of day would be elevated to relevant party structures.

He also registered concern that of the 57 constituencies, only 18 had submitted proposals for consideration by the youth policy forum, urging the party youth to endeavour to fare better at next year’s meet.

Chairperson of the Political Education and Elections Committee, Mr Alec Seametso called on young democrats to shun promoting divisions in the party, or aligning themselves to the vision of individual party members at the expense of that of the BDP.

He said it was the party’s deep-seated desire to raise a crop of youthful members who would serve as its vanguard in efforts to safeguard its interests going into the future.

In closing, Mr Seametso told the BDP youth that the party was on course to improve its membership registration processes to ensure that records were a true reflection of the membership status of each member.

“Our party’s membership status is tainted.

For as long as we have people who are simultaneously members of the BDP and other political parties, we cannot say with certainty that we have a certain number of members.

It is for this reason that we are doing everything possible to plug the gaps that have been making that possible,” he said. ENDS