16 Nov 2023

There is a need to relook at the guidelines of the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) as some of them frustrate and demoralise applicants.

Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, the Member of Parliament for Kgalagadi South, Mr Sam Brooks complained that there were many instances where applicants were sent back for even the minor errors, leading to some of them getting reluctant to come back.

Mr Brooks also said channels of filing an appeal at the agency were also too bureaucratic and needed to be reviewed as well. 

“To equally cater for all Batswana, there is also a need to write the guidelines in Setswana for the benefit of those who are not conversant with English,” he said.

As a way of ensuring the success of the CEDA funded projects, Mr Brooks advised that projects should be funded looking at the potential of the region, the same approach he advised should be adopted with the newly launched Temo Letlotlo initiative.

“This country has different geographical areas each with its unique potential, and so we should not make blanket guidelines when it comes to programmes like Temo Letlotlo,” he said. 

He said Temo Letlotlo was likely to fail in the Kgalagadi area which had low annual rainfalls if the requirements were to be applied in a blanket form.

On other government initiatives, Mr Brooks also called on government to tailor the destitute programme in such a way that the whole family becomes a beneficiary rather than just one member of the family.

“The initiative currently works such that when a member of a family who is the beneficiary dies, the family suffers as they will not get any food hampers. Also, reassessing the family for a replacement beneficiary normally takes months, leaving the family exposed to hunger,” he said.

In other areas, Mr Brooks advised government to decentralise the maintenance of firebreaks across the country to citizen-owned companies so that they could be maintained constantly. 

He said the current arrangement where firebreaks were maintained by government led to poor servicing due to shortage of machinery, which he said led to recent incidents where the farms in Kgalagadi were ravaged by veldt fires.

Mr Brooks also said decentralising the maintenance of firebreaks would help sustain citizen-owned companies and speed up work as the projects could be broken down into small and manageable tenders.

Mr Brooks noted that the dry grading of roads in his constituency, such as the Tsabong-Maubelo, Khuis-Khawa, Werda-Bray and Tsabong Kokotsha should also be decentralised to private local companies for similar reasons.

He said failure to maintain the roads timely led to their deterioration. Ends