Africa-Press – Botswana. If carefully rolled out, the Chema Chema Fund can provide great potential for the informal sector to play a more meaningful role in overall economic development and job creation.
As such, commercial banks including entrepreneurship development agencies have been implored to develop interventions geared towards uplifting and deriving optimum efficiencies from the newly introduced revolving fund.
This was said by CEDA chief executive officer, Mr Thabo Thamane during the FNBB 30th Annual Budget Review Seminar in Gaborone, on Tuesday.
Mr Thamane also called for the overhauling of the Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS), citing that its impact of delayed payments heavily crippled small businesses.
He said unfortunately the extent of damage done through delayed payments had never been measured, however, experience demonstrated that more businesses closed shop due to the phenomenon.
He said delayed payments often caused small businesses to opt for soliciting overdrafts with commercial banks, which comes at a huge cost thereby limiting business profits and stalling entities to break even.
Mr Thamane applauded FNBB for its continued efforts to introduce advanced technological development within the local markets and implored the bank to remain steadfast in assisting the nation with enhanced payment solutions.
He said CEDA was soon to launch the artificial insemination product which should augment efforts by government to have the agricultural sector contribute immensely to the nation’s GDP.
Meanwhile, FNBB CFO Dr Mbako Mbo said the strategic intent of the seminar was to pursue a deep-dive into the 2024 National budget, touching on the National Development Plan 12 and many other elements such as the much-welcome increase in budget allocation to sports development, creative arts, Agriculture, research and development as well as infrastructure development.
Dr Mbo said they believed that these were important areas of the economy, which they continued to support either through providing financing solutions, social investments or transacting with the relevant partners with a shared value mindset.
He said discussions around such topics would bring excitement as they were key to critical ideation that would lead Botswana to greater achievements as the nation aspired to ascend to high-income status.
“The collaboration between the private sector, academia and the government, in particular, has added invaluable meaning to our National Budget Review Seminars for the past 30 years. Once again, it is a big thank you from us at FNB,” he said.
This year’s seminar was themed, National Development Plan as a Driver f a Shift In Mindset: A Stepping Stone Towards Vision 2036.
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