16 Mar 2014

Residents of Chanoga have been urged to take advantage of available opportunities offered by different departments under the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI).

Addressing a kgotla meeting, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Ms Dorcus Makgato-Malesu said there were a number of programmes under the ministry aimed to benefit the public but there was low turn up.

Ms Makgato-Malesu was sensitising the community about departments and some parastatals under the ministry such as Local Enterprise Authority (LEA), Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), Department of Cooperatives, Botswana Development Corporation and Botswana Competition Authority saying they were of benefit to the community at large. The minister urged the public to take advantage of available services offered by LEA in order to start sustainable businesses.

She informed them that LEA was established to promote and facilitate entrepreneurship and SMME development through targeted interventions in pursuit of economic diversification.

Ms Makgato-Malesu said LEA could equip them with information about being an entrepreneur and its qualities, available business opportunities and choosing enterprise model.

She mentioned products and services offered by LEA such as business plan development, monitoring and mentoring, entrepreneurship development and training, startup facilitation and business incubation.

The minister further urged residents to work hand in hand with LEA to assist them in business plans noting that before one could think of starting a project, he/she should develop a business plan which was a roadmap of the business as it would indicate the viability of the business.

She also revealed that CEDA also plays a vital role in assisting entrepreneurs with funding and technical support for business development with a view to promote viable and sustainable citizen owned business enterprise.

CEDA, she explained offers loans starting from P500-P30 million. “If women in the village sell beans and have no bags to package the, they could approach CEDA for an affordable loan to buy bags,” she added.

Residents also learnt that government has embarked on a robust Economic Diversification Drive (EDD) strategy that seeks to strengthen all sectors of the economy including small entrepreneurs. Ms Makgato-Malesu said the EDD strategy advocates for production and consumption of locally produced products and services in order to develop local production capacity for future expansion into exports market.

“EDD registered enterprises enjoy preferential treatment in government procurement system through the use of preference margins,” said the minister.

Briefing residents about the importance of the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ms Makgato-Malesu said the ministry’s mandate was to create wealth for the country and give generated income to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning so that it distributes to different ministries. She said the ministry was responsible for promotion and attraction of both domestic and foreign productive investment in the industrial and commercial sectors.

Ms Makgato-Malesu said government was concerned with graduate who were idling and observed that MTI was ideal as it creates sustainable industries which creates employment.

She also revealed that it was also responsible for economic diversification adding that the country has been depending mostly on diamonds hence the need to look for other opportunities to diversify. She said failure to diversify the economy, the existing projects would collapse. ENDS