03 Mar 2014

The Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Dorcus Makgato Malesu has urged residents of Pilikwe, Maape and Mhalapitsa to utilise different initiatives under her ministry.

Briefing residents during kgotla meetings in the three villages on February 27, Minister Makgato-Malesu expressed concern that residents were not utilising different initiatives under her ministry, which were aimed at helping Batswana and empowering them to get out of poverty.

She said each a Motswana could borrow up to P40 million from CEDA to start businesses but the Tswapong South constituency which had a population of over 12 000 had managed to get only P2 million. She attributed the under-utilisation of available initiatives to lack of understanding of services offered under her ministry.

The minister challenged residents to visit departments such as Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) which could help them and mentor them in starting businesses before they can go and get loans from CEDA. She said it was high time people start their own businesses “because we cannot all be farmers as is the case at the moment.”

Ms Makgato-Malesu also pointed out that Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMME’s) were not doing well because Batswana have a tendency of buying the same products and crowding in one area even when the local market is not big.

Meanwhile, Minister Makgato-Malesu urged residents to revive the cooperatives as they could help people get out of poverty. She said nowadays starting a cooperative business was easy because it only needs five people to do so.

She pointed out that the reason why most Cooperatives could not stand the test of time was because they failed to change with times in doing basic things such as branding, being in contact with customers, finance embezzlement and including people who can read and write.

For their part residents have blamed the collapse of Cooperatives on the influx of some international communities lamenting that since they are free to export goods from their fellow countrymen overseas and at the same time own shops locally, there was no way cooperatives would have survived. ENDS