LEA urges bakery graduates to take advantage of the market
Local Enterprises Authority (LEA) graduates on bakery and confectionery sector have been encouraged to utilize skills they acquired through the training to operate business and take advantage of the market opportunity in the sector.
Nine graduates completed their training on bread and confectionery cooking skills at LEA Kutla incubation centre in Gaborone. Speaking during the ceremony, LEA Chief Finance Officer, Godfrey Molefe said graduation came at a time when government had already taken a decision to empower citizens by giving them an opportunity to take the lead in the bread and confectionery sector. Recently, the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry banned the importation of baked goods.
The ministry stated that through the control of goods, prices and other charges Act, importation of baked goods is restricted to stimulate the establishment and development of micro, small, medium and large enterprises operating the bread and confectionery services in Botswana.
Molefe said LEA has aligned its services to government initiatives and thus more citizens are going to be trained to close the market gap. “We have trained these people so that they can close the market gap on what the customers need. I am happy that since we started the project we have about 35 people who started businesses in the bakery sector since the establishment of Kutla in 2017,” he said. He said they are going to engage in robust initiative to lobby government to purchase from Batswana producers only.
The Kutla Incubation Centre started its operations in October 2017, and has since trained beneficiaries on the manufacturing of various products. Kutla Incubation Centre started training with 30 trainees from various parts of the country. They were trained on three projects namely, toilet paper roll manufacturing, confectionary making and liquid detergent.
Some of the skills that were imparted to the trainees are Health and Safety, manufacturing/ production procedures and minor service and maintenance. In addition, as part of the incubation programme the trainees underwent business courses namely: Entrepreneurship Development Training (EDT) and Sales and Marketing