04 Dec 2013

Legislators have been informed that the Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy (CEEP) was approved by Parliament in August 2012 while in November the same year, the Ministry of Trade and Industry was tasked with the mandate to coordinate implementation of the policy.

Answering a question in Parliament on Monday, November 2, the Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Keletso Rakhudu said citizen economic empowerment was not a new phenomenon within ‘our” culture. 


Mr Rakhudu said government had over the years, embraced citizen empowerment initiatives in its development planning process by implementing specific programmes intended to empower Batswana in the absence of a specific citizen empowerment policy. 
 He noted that such initiatives took the form of subsidies, reservation policy and preference schemes and poverty eradication programmes, amongst others.

These programmes, he said, were however intended to enhance the competitiveness of the citizen businesses, improve the economic status of Batswana and ultimately improve their quality of life.

Mr Rakhudu said since they started implementation of the policy, they have recorded a number of beneficiaries from various categories and these are 4854 projects under the poverty eradication programme; 543 beneficiaries under the Youth Empowerment Schemes; 172 reserved citizen manufacturing companies employing 4316 citizens while 76 citizen construction companies were awarded projects to the value of P58.6 million.


Other projects include 47 citizen enterprises employing 151 people on solid waste management and disposal, two citizens companies engaged in development of sporting facilities in remote area settlement; P3.8 million earmarked for citizen businesses in the horticultural sector; P14.8 million disbursed to 1220 beneficiaries under the Women Economic Empowerment Programme while 1320 youth have been re-absorbed into the school system and 9118 into tertiary institutions to upgrade their qualifications.


Parliament was further informed that area planted under ISPAAD amounted to 341 000 hectares by 105 000 farmers and out of the 764 registered licensed tourism facilities, 406 are wholly citizen owned.


Meanwhile minister Rakhudu said there are still challenges with regard to the availability of information on implementation of citizen empowerment initiatives. In this regard, he said the sensitisation process of the policy with various stakeholders is being vigorously pursued.


He however said Batswana still require the necessary skills and competences to successfully take advantage of economy, and therefore to have a greater ownership, management and meaningful participation in the economy.


The MP for South East South Mr Odirile Motlhale had asked the minister to update the House on the Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy, stating the type and number of projects given to citizen companies that have benefitted from this policy since inception. Ends