Batswana resort to side-hustles to alleviate economic pinch
Scores of Batswana have taken to the informal sector to augment their income under the tough economic conditions or found new ways of eking a living after losing jobs following the Covid-19 lockdowns.
Many Batswana have now resorted to being street vendors, with stalls mushrooming across most urban and semi-urban areas selling anything from cooked food, vegetables and clothes.
Every second vendor on the street sells cooked food, which, according to Thato Mosepele, a food caterer, is because food sells fast.
“Selling food is a way of making quick cash because people will always eat. I sell magwinya, diphaphaphata and soup in the morning, and each day I am guaranteed 200 bucks that goes directly to my pocket.”
Another street vendor who sells airtime, cigarettes, clothes and cosmetics, Peter Motlhanka, said he set up a stall after the company he was working for closed down last year.
“The Covid19 pandemic ruined things for us. We were told that the company was not doing well and is closing. I couldn’t stay home and feel sorry for myself; I had to make a plan, so here I am.
“It’s tough because people don’t have money to buy – that is why I sell different stuff. On a bad day I make 100 bucks, but on a good day I can make 500 in a day. It is just fine because nowadays no one can even give you five Pula.”
He said there is stiff competition because there are many people selling than before but it was a case of ‘each man for himself and God for us all.’
It is this same God who is widely believed helps those who help themselves, and these street vendors are pretty much meeting HIM halfway because not even divine intervention can bring miracle money into the pockets of anyone under the current bleak economic downturn.
Botswana’s inflation shot to 4.67 percent this year, from 1.99 percent last year, and 2.85 percent and 3.24 percent in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
It is the highest inflation rate Botswana has had since 2014 when inflation stood at 4.42 percent owing to the global recession of the time. The April tax hikes have made things tougher: prices of all commodities, food, electricity, water, airtime, petrol, transport and rent have increased, but salaries are still the same and income revenue streams are few and wide apart, as the consumers are battling to make ends meet and are forced to buckle up, which means less spending.
Some Batswana who are working have taken to “side-hustles” to augment their paltry earnings, such as Lerato Tsimako who sells after work.
“I sell clothes, perfumes, and sometimes chickens, eggs and madila. Gone are the days of relying on only one income. The Covid-19 pandemic has opened
our eyes to the importance of having multiple-income streams. Times are tough, we just have to hustle.”
But it appears that it is the informal sector that has been hardest hit. In March this year, then Minister of Trade, Peggy Serame presented the informal sector recovery plan.
She explained that following an exercise to register SMME businesses undertaken by LEA to determine the numbers, the Ministry of Trade had collaborated with Botswana Country Office of the United Nations Development Programme and commissioned further analysis of data to determine the impact of Covid-19 on the informal sector, and to develop a mitigation recovery plan.
About 38 000 enterprises were registered, with about 27 000 being informal. Serame said from the data on the registered informal sector entities, most businesses are in the services sector (selling and re-selling of various items such as clothing, airtime and catering and others) at 64 percent followed by agriculture at 21 percent.
The recovery plan proposed two interventions: the establishment of an informal sector agency, and Covid-19 relief to the informal sector through a P1000 grant administered by LEA.
Records indicated that about 12 978 beneficiaries had benefited from these grants by March 2021. Other interventions included provision of horticulture land in Dikabeya and Glen Valley, small stock incubation projects in Lobu and Ghanzi, informal sector market stalls (Ledumang and Selebi-Phikwe for example), Light manufacturing projects and community projects carried out with community trusts.
The Informal Sector study of 2015 estimated the contribution of the sector to be about 7.8 billion representing 5.2 percent to the country’s GDP.
The report indicated that those who work in the informal sector are faced with several challenges that include: poor working environment, low participation in policy formulation, inadequate access to financing and credit facilities and poor access to operating facilities.