Sowa Fails To Attract Banks Mayor

475,Correspondent,,78795,Tsogo Ramatsabana,, | Thursday May 10, 2018 00:00

Maphane averred when addressing a full council meeting in the township recently. In August this year the council resolved to approach banks in a bid to convince them to open branches in Sowa Town.

He highlighted that banks have been reluctant to set up owing to various factors.  “The banks have affirmed that it will not be economically viable to open banking facilities taking into consideration the Sowa Town population and types of operational businesses in the area,” he said.

The township has a population of nearly 4,000 people, majority of them being employees of BotAsh Mine. Most of the businesses that operate in the township are also of small and medium scale nature. 

Only First National Bank of Botswana (FNBB) offers mobile banking services to the township through an agreement with BotAsh. However, mobile banking comes to the township once in a month.

At one point Stanbic and Barclays had fully fledged operations here, but they closed down late in 2017 citing less commercial activity in the area.

Then, senior officials from the two banks said that they could not keep going because their operational costs did not tally with the profits they were making from their operations in the township.  Residents of Sowa Town currently access banking services in Nata or Francistown. The two areas are 40 kilometres and 140 kilometres away from Sowa respectively something the latter’s residents say is not convenient.  Meanwhile, Maphane has said that during the council’s routine inspections they identified some retailers who were selling expired goods. He said that they re-packaged the expired food commodities, and arbitrarily branded them with new counterfeit dates of shelf life.

The mayor noted that the retailers were fined for their actions. He said that non-adherence to public health requirements by some business operators in the township is a serious concern to authorities.