Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) and Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) officials said during business forum presentation at the event that the youth should be prepared to compete with everybody in the commercial world. "There are no favours in business and you should expect to compete with everyone in this industry," said BOBS' certification service manager at Sehuhula (GET HIS OTHER NAME). He said the youth can only be helped through training and exposure to prepare them to compete with others. He advised the youth to take businesses seriously if they want to benefit from the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. He encouraged the youth to have their products, processes and services certified by BOBS so that they can compete well in the market. "Your products, processes and services should conform to specific requirements for eligibility to be certified," said Sehuhula. He told the young entrepreneurs that there are two certificates at BOBS for products and systems.
"The product certification certifies quality products of certain standards such as bricks and system certification certifies procedures the company uses," said Sehuhula. He said the requirements for applying for certification are compliance with regulatory requirements, a quality manual, proof of compliance through testing, inspection, auditing maintained quality systems, trained personnel and record keeping. Sehuhula said people are afraid of making quality products and services and this is a problem. PPADB public relations and public education manager, Ditapole Chibus-Tsheboeng told youth that there are no tenders specifically reserved for them. "You have to compete with the big guns because they are also in business. So you have to work hard and ready to compete with them."Tesheboeng advised the youth to register with PPADB so that they can tender for government projects and business.
