Woman Makes Strides In Male- Dominated Bricks Industry
Lindiwe Mozola | Monday June 5, 2017 18:00
The situation becomes even worse if you are a woman, especially in a business that has always been male-dominated such as the brick-moulding and mortar business.
However, the perceived male dominance in the brick moulding industry did not deter Tebogo Pholo to venture into something she has always loved.
Today she is making strides in the Central region where she is running a striving business under the name, Holly Bunker Tona Bricks N’ Pavers.
Pholo ended her relationship with a well known supplier of bricks to partner with her brother, Clement Pholo, in starting up her own business, despite financial challenges and marketing woes among other things.
“My brother and I were shareholders at Babirwa Concrete Products, which is one of the largest brick supplying companies based in Tlokweng, but we decided to take a leap of faith to start our own business as we felt we were experienced enough,” she said. According to Pholo, it was not easy, especially that she is a woman, adding that at times she is not taken seriously in this kind of business perceived to be for males.
Holy Bunkers specialises in supplying various bricks which include bevel edge pavers, interlocking pavers, hollow blocks, stock bricks and decorative blocks, to name just a few.
She said they started the business in February this year with P400,000 from their personal savings, which she said was a difficult terrain as they had limited resources and had to compete with already established companies.
Pholo added that unlike other companies that have licences for brick crush aggregate and brick plant, they are forced to hike prices due to costs of procuring the products hence driving away potential customers to other companies, more especial Asian entities that have more resources including a plant.
“This is one of our biggest challenge we are forced to hike our prices as it is very cost to procure products compared to Chinese establishment who have their own bricks crush aggregate hence selling at a lower price,” added Pholo.
She further stated that their challenges have also been fuelled by limited funds, noting that they have since applied for a loan at the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) last year, which was never approved.
She however said that she will not lose hope as she will keep on applying until they are approved even if it means trying other government funding schemes.
She also stated that they are challenged by lack of support from the locals who prefer procuring bricks from foreign companies on the basis that local businesses do not produce the best. On that issue, she said she hopes to have a Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) certificate so that they can penetrate government market and bid for more tenders.
So far, she said, her business has supplied paving bricks for the main road of the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), which is under construction, as well as supplying bricks for two lodges in Serowe.
With a staff complement of 18 Batswana, Pholo aspires to own a brick production plant that will employ more citizens.