CEDA, Stanbic partner to curb fraud
Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) Chief Executive Officer, Thabo Thamane said a partnership with Stanbic Bank Botswana would help its co-founded projects to connect with reputable suppliers to ensure seamless trade.
On a daily basis the agency completes transactions with its clients across the various sectors which in most cases require the agency to finance the purchase of movable assets including machinery and equipments from establishments outside the country, especially from South Africa, China and India. “CEDA’s experience with cross border transactions has not been very pleasant as there are projects that are in the red as a result of non-delivery or poor quality of goods ordered from other countries,” said Thamane.
Stanbic Bank Botswana, a member of the Standard Bank Group has an all-encompassing solution for AfricaChina cross border trade that enables the matching of buyers from
Africa with suppliers or manufacturers in China. Speaking at the signing ceremony on Wednesday, Thamane said the challenge of non-delivery or poor quality of goods ordered from across the borders has been a thorn to the agency for a long time despite great efforts in trying to curb the problem. “With the advent of technology, people can create their websites and put in machinery with all the prices and vanish after receiving payments. It has happened, I have people who are left with nothing now. They have been swindled of their hard earned cash.”
However, he said through the numerous interactions with Stanbic Bank Botswana the agency has managed to thrash out these problems for the sake of customers to have peace of mind when transacting in foreign markets. The CEDA and Stanbic Bank Botswana partnership comes at a time when the newly revised CEDA guidelines prescribe that for special sectors such as manufacturing, mining coonstruction , energy,
technology and innovation agriculture and tourism, CEDA shall take security over assets purchased and delivered inthe right specifications, quality and quantity to minimise CEDA’s exposure in case of default.
Thamane revealed that CEDA received 25 000 enquiries within a month after launching its revised guidelines, which was indicative of the level of hunger and desire by Batswana to make a difference in their lives.“We found it imperative to partner with a giant like Stanbic which has the infrastructure and technical expertise that can go a long way in providing invaluable services for our customers,” said Thamane.
For his part, Stanbic Bank Botswana Chief Executive Officer, Samuel Minta said the partnership would help grow the local entrepreneurship and gives opportunity to do cross border transactions without being defrauded.
“Stanbic Bank Botswana through our parent company Standard Bank Group facilitates through the Africa –China Agent,a proposition which provides buyers from Africa with exclusive access to accredited trade agents in China, we want to see many Batswana succeed in business,” said Minta.