29 Jun 2015

Government has exempted youth businesses from certain requirements.

This is part of government’s effort to assist young Batswana with creative and innovative business ideas and plans to achieve their full potential.

As such, young people are urged to develop a positive mindset and take advantage of available economic opportunities that can lead to decent lives.

Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture, Mr Thapelo Olopeng, revealed this in an interview.

Amongst the exemptions, youth businesses will now buy tender documents as well as register with Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board (PPADB) at 50 per cent discount. Mr Olopeng also says 30 per cent of cattle chasing and cut lines and fire breaks tenders will be reserved for youth.

He says youth who have acquired class B driver’s license at 18 years will be allowed to apply for other classes at 21 years and not 25 as has been the case.

“Upon communicating these initiatives to youth on our regular consultations with them around the country their main concern was the PPADB procedures.

They said registering with the board took up to three months while express registration which requires an upfront fee of P5000 took less than 14 days. My argument was, if it takes 14 days for express registration, why not do everything within 14 days,” says Mr Olopeng.

The minister says youth businesses will have a grace period of five years without paying lease fees for commercial plots and farms.

“The number one challenge for young people doing business is availability of land. We agreed at cabinet level that youth should be given a chance to use open spaces for their market in urban and semi urban areas. We have also established land banks in partnership with the ministry of lands,” says Mr Olopeng.

The youth will be allowed to identify open spaces they could utilise to set up stalls free of charge.

Thirty per cent of open spaces in town and cities will be reserved for permanent use by youth businesses.

“The intent is to create a better platform for young people to ride on. Youth will even be allowed to start off with a license for trading that would be recognised by PPADB much as they would recognise a trading license,” he says.

Therefore, Minister Olopeng encourages all stakeholders to be on the same wavelength as they strive to empower young people.

Recently, Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele, told Parliament that the introduction of youth empowerment programmes was a top priority for government and as such several strategies were implemented.

To date, more than 120 projects under the Youth Development Fund (YDF) have been funded with an amount exceeding P100 million.

The fund has so far financed 597 projects to the tune of P239 million in the creation of 2 386 jobs.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications also has two programmes that are geared towards empowering young people, namely the ICT Incubation Programme and the Roads Maintenance projects for companies owned by young people. Ends