{"id":19246,"date":"2023-01-02T10:52:55","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T10:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector"},"modified":"2023-01-02T12:02:44","modified_gmt":"2023-01-02T12:02:44","slug":"did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector","title":{"rendered":"Did Letlhabile \u2018save the day\u2019 for the informal sector?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. <\/strong><\/span>Letlhabile will focus specifically on uplifting the informal sector which has been negatively impacted by its vulnerability and reliance on an active formal sector and the movement of the public, whose mobility has been restricted by travel restrictions implemented to control the spread of COVID-19\u201d, reads part of the brochure that introduced the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA)\u2019s informal sector flagship program in 2020.<\/b><\/p>\n

But now question arises on whether the mission has been achieved by the state owned financial development institution, CEDA.<\/p>\n

At the time of the launch in mid-2020, the informal sector association projected that the credit scheme will be out of reach for many of its members\u2019.<\/p>\n

The leader of the Botswana Informal Sector Association \u2013 Mpho Matoteng told press at the time that their registered members, totally up to 25 000 in urban areas were hard hit by the first national lockdown declared in April 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot afford to incur extra costs by borrowing money\u201d, Matoteng said a few days after the then Trade Minister \u2013 Peggy Serame announced that P10 million has been set aside to assist the informal sector.<\/p>\n

Matoteng said that is quite clear that while necessary phases of national lockdown are threatening livelihoods in the informal economy, Botswana government relief efforts are frequently only reaching formal workers and businesses. But now CEDA Head of Marketing & Communications Anno Tshipa says as of October 2022, the state owned development agency has funded 8, 402 projects under Letlhabile to the tune of P40.4 million. Furthermore, the product offering managed to assist businesses retain 9, 662 in the informal sector alone. Of all the loans approved, 83 percent of them (6, 974) were women run businesses and 42 percent of them (3, 529 are youth operated businesses).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe uptake of the product was convincing, and the monitoring of the existing loan book has shown that it would be worthwhile to review the funding requirements to ensure that the product is more accommodating for the informal sector. As a result, the Agency is working on the revamp of the Letlhabile product offering to be relaunched before the end of the 2022\/23 financial year,\u201d says Tshipa.<\/p>\n

Initially the Letlhabile programme was meant to address challenges faced by the informal sector during the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

Tshipa says the Letlhabile product offering facilitated the financial inclusion of entrepreneurs operating in the informal sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur clients now had access to banking services through means of loans as well as the ability to bank at an individual level through mobile banking as they transact through our Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Botswana<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Botswana. Letlhabile will focus specifically on uplifting the informal sector which has been negatively impacted by its vulnerability and reliance on an active formal sector and the movement of the public, whose mobility has been restricted by travel restrictions implemented to control the spread of COVID-19\u201d, reads part of the brochure that introduced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6],"tags":[233,237,234],"class_list":["post-19246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-botswana","tag-botswana"],"yoast_head":"\nDid Letlhabile \u2018save the day\u2019 for the informal sector? - Botswana<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Letlhabile will focus specifically on uplifting the informal sector which has been negatively impacted by its vulnera ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Did Letlhabile \u2018save the day\u2019 for the informal sector?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Letlhabile will focus specifically on uplifting the informal sector which has been negatively impacted by its vulnera ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Botswana\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-01-02T10:52:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-01-02T12:02:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/01\/postQueueImg_1672644225.40.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Did Letlhabile \u2018save the day\u2019 for the informal sector?\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-01-02T10:52:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-01-02T12:02:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\"},\"wordCount\":436,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/botswana\/sites\/38\/2023\/01\/postQueueImg_1672644225.40.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Botswana\",\"Botswana\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/botswana\/all-news\/did-letlhabile-save-the-day-for-the-informal-sector\",\"name\":\"Did Letlhabile \u2018save the day\u2019 for the informal sector? 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