Some wealth creation cluster projects in the North West District which are under government’s economic empowerment programme are reportedly facing numerous challenges that consequently affect their production.
Among other projects which are funded under this programme include, small stock, horticulture, integrated farming and manufacturing.
According to the District Development Committee (DDC) report, some of these challenges include, theft incidences of equipment mainly due to abandonment of the projects by beneficiaries.
There is also reported negligence by beneficiaries, with them leaving their projects behind unattended and relocate without informing the relevant offices. Further to the challenges, some beneficiaries are accused of selling projects equipment covertly.
There is said to be also reluctancy by beneficiaries in actively marketing their projects, depending on government tenders, and them lacking commitment which results in some projects failing and unsustainably operating.
“Lack of accreditation and value addition of the products hinders them to penetrate larger markets,” the report further indicated.
The report highlighted that the Maun based Thito Integrated Farming’s horticulture project had no production and sales in the third quarter and there was also no harvest and sales on its fishery part. “Harvesting was scheduled to take place in the first week of December but due to the weights recorded for fish it was not ideal to harvest them at that weight since they could not be sold at competitive market price,” read the report.
It also indicated that a smaller number of beneficiaries at KSBB, a Maun based brick moulding project, negatively affects production capacity, thus, the present beneficiaries are not able to reach the maximum output per day. The office is however said to has made a request to the Department of Social and Community Development to assist with identifying and assessing the potential beneficiaries to add onto the group members.
Unreliable and untimely delivery of raw materials is said to be also affecting the Maphoi Toilet Paper Manufacturing project in Maun. Consequently, the project had no production and sales in the third quarter and is being owed an amount of over P22, 000.00 from the sales of the garage rolls by the supplier of the raw material.
The Chanoga Horticulture project is said to have also had no production in the same quarter owing to the dried-up Boteti River. After making interventions of installing drip line and a pump, the project is said to have encountered setbacks as the pump is said to be not working and they are currently awaiting for a technician to establish the problem.
Some of the interventions provided by the relevant department to address the challenges include, provision of refresher courses to beneficiaries to capacitate them with relevant skills to run their projects and encouraging them to produce competitive products that can compete in the market.
Further to that, the office also conducts market days for marketing and networking purposes, advice beneficiaries to use social medias to network and other platforms to market their businesses and also encourage cluster packaging for skill transfer and increase productivity.
