04 Mar 2024

The Selebi Phikwe branch of the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), has invested P353m in more than 2 970 projects, the Mayor of Selebi Phikwe, Mr Lucas Modimana, has said.

Giving an update during the ongoing full council meeting in Selebi Phikwe Thursday, Mr Modimana said the projects created a total employment of 5 858 in the SPEDU region. He said CEDA went also funded 202 projects with P42m in Selebi Phikwe during financial year 2022/2023 to date. These included main line projects and informal sector projects.

Under the CEDA mainline projects, Mr Modimana said, 36 customers had been funded with a value of P34m to date with majority of these projects being manufacturing, services and agri-businesses. He also said since the closure of borders, P260 000 had been used to fund agri-business projects, adding that two of the receipts benefited through Impact Acceleration Subsidy, a programme from the Ministry of Agriculture which supported citizens who wish to venture in horticulture with 50 per cent grant and 50 per cent contribution from the applicant.

Mr Modimana said CEDA had also funded 114 projects to the value of P1m under Mabogo Dinku and Letlhabile micro finance products for the year 2022/2023.

“Most of the applicants are the ones managing the projects under these two programmes,” he said.

He said there was also Purchase Order Financing where 123 beneficiaries had received funding with a total of P36m used on this category.

For financial year 2022/2023, 23 trade finance projects with a value of P8m were also funded, he added.

However Mr Modimana decried challenges experienced by the agency such as insufficient business experience and technical skills that resulted in failure of the projects despite training and mentoring.

The other challenge was unavailability of warehouses and high rates of electricity on the available warehouses, mismanagement and division of projects funds by the beneficiaries, abandonment and lack of commitment to projects as well as failure to pay back loans.

“I encourage members of the community to work hard towards these government programmes,” he said.

As a way of adopting one of the country’s reset priorities, the mayor said CEDA had launched a digital platform named CEDA online services #Kaekapakae which was sourced from the its website.

This service would be used by everyone eligible to apply for a CEDA loan, adding that the platform also allowed Batswana to enquire online, check for loan balances, apply for loans, and check progress of the loan and the use of a loan calculator at the comfort of their home. Touching on the implementation of the supplementary feeding programme, Mr Modimana said the program was progressing well in the district, emphasizing that all primary schools were adequately supplied with required food commodities.

He said local community continued to benefit by supplying bread and other food commodities to all 11 primary schools at the cumulative amount of over P2.4m to date. He said 200 farmers had also benefited from the scheme since the beginning of this financial year with the amount of over P1.2m.

Mr Modimana said during financial year 2023/2024 government had developed the second Transitional National Development Plan to allow for the introduction of enabling reforms to the national development planning system.

“The plan was also developed to allow for the completion of some NDP 11 projects whose implementation was disrupted during COVID- 19 pandemic,” he said. Primary school facilities backlog eradication was funded with P3.9m.

He said despite the initial delay, all four contractors had been already awarded tenders and started mobilizing on site. He applauded SPEDU for fulfilling their mandate of business facilitation, project initiation and implementation. The construction of the 30km Platjan – Mathathane road linking the Platjan Boarder with Mathathane village was ongoing. He said the road construction was envisaged to create jobs and link South Africa and Botswana for tourism purposes, reduce cost of transport from production to consumers and ease congestion at the Martins Drift border when complete.

He said SPEDU had also facilitated another project (Pipe World, which had created 70 job opportunities during its construction phase and currently employing twenty people. He said when fully operational the project would create employment for 100 people. Highlighting on community projects, Mr Modimana said most of them were not doing well. He said most of their challenges were attributed to shortage funding.

Mr Modimana applauded the Thakomebosele project beneficiaries for diversifying their project by venturing into rearing of broiler chickens and operating a vegetable garden. He said, the project was still thriving well despite financial challenges they faced. He appealed to business community and the general public to continue assisting the project financially and in-kind. ends