This week, the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) presented a draft study on the entrepreneurship landscape in Botswana that revealed horrific figures over how the taxpayer’s money goes down the drain in some of government investments.
The report revealed that while government has resolved to create jobs for Botswana’s ailing economy through funding Small to medium enterprises (SMEs), for a period spanning over five years now, on the other hand the State has been perennially losing lump sums with little to no job creation being done.
What a dismay it is to report to the hardworking coal smelter operator basking in the heat of industrial machines all day or the underground mining artisan or the teacher teaching a class of 45 children, that their taxes are spoiled in investments that will not see the light of the day. The report further revealed that of 5,606 projects funded by Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) only a meagre 7,700 jobs were created, averaging less than two jobs per project.
Government surely is engaging in acts of goodwill by trying to empower citizens through investing in their aspirations. However, there is need to be prudent in this expedition. Business class 101 is that investments must prove to be feasible and a balanced risk approach to funding must be followed in order to safeguard the purse from citizen exploitation.
In another disappointing turn out of government investment, last year in Parliament, Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare, revealed that between 2019 and 2023, the government had invested in 2,768 youth projects through the Youth Development Fund (YDF) programme, with only a meagre 214 beneficiaries repaying the loans.
The trend will go on unless government comes up with measures to curb this low return on investment. The citizens as well should shoulder the bulk of the blame and responsibility for the mess. Government efforts to invest in citizen aspirations should be met with the goodwill of ensuring job creation, mass scaling of enterprises that can tap into international markets.
It is pertinent for government and the citizens to heed to this alarm as the economy braces for more citizen economic empowerment initiatives such as Temo Letlotlo, Chema Chema fund and many others.
Today's thought
“In levying taxes and in shearing sheep it is well to stop when you get down to the skin.”
– Austin O’Malley
