Despite being regarded as one of the industries that can drive economic diversification, create jobs and reduce Botswana’s import bill, the manufacturing sector remains largely unexplored with a low rate of start ups.
Appreciating that other sectors were making use of funding offered by Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), the agency’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Thabo Thamane, admitted the same could not be said about manufacturing.
Addressing stakeholders in Maun last week, Thamane revealed CEDA had invested P480 million in the North West region since the start of the year.
This includes P151 million pumped into property projects, P50 million in agric-business initiatives and only P15 million towards the manufacturing sector.
“I urge you to take the manufacturing sector seriously. Be innovative and engage our office to help on which projects you can venture into,” Thamane encouraged his audience.
Regarding the Chema Chema Fund, the CEDA boss said they experienced massive interest in the North West since the programme’s launch on 5 April.
In that time, they have received 3, 367 applications, of which 2, 402 were successfully approved at a value of P53 million.
He explained that the programme is designed to help citizens grow their businesses, create employment opportunities and aid economic growth in the informal sector through provision of short term loans.
Diving deeper into the details, Thamane disclosed, “The agency approved close to 30 applications every day and women were showing a lot of interest in the programme. Out of the total approved, 72 percent were women while youth made 32 percent from 758 having applied. People living with disabilities were also coming forth and already 15 applications from that group have been approved.”
The CEDA CEO further highlighted that the services sector was leading in terms of applications which made 70 percent, agriculture second at 23 percent and manufacturing at eight percent.
