CEDA spent P3.2bn in 10 years

Faced with funding 80 percent start-up businesses, Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) has managed to survive 67 percent of its funded business beyond three years, spending a whooping P3.4 billion in the process. CEDA has funded 5324 start-up businesses and expansions in various sectors of the economy, ten years since its inception.

At it establishment CEDA inherited a myriad of challenges from its predecessor programmes such as the Botswana Enterprise Development Unit (BEDU), the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) and Micro Business Fund. To date CEDA has spent P2.291 billion in Development Fund.

The Development Fund is distributed as follows, the Service sector accounts for P1.076 billion, Agribusiness P687 million, and Property and Manufacturing P526 million.  Young Farmers Fund which government has earmarked to address the problem of unemployment amongst the youth, through creating viable businesses in the Agricultural sector accounts for P216 million.

CEDA as an Agency for the development of viable sustainable citizen-owned business enterprises provides a Credit Guarantees Scheme (CGS) for citizen owned businesses, which intend to borrow from commercial banks but do not possess collateral required by the banks.

CEDA Guarantee Scheme accounts for P352 million. CEDA received more responsibility with takeover of the Citizen Entrepreneur Mortage Assistance Equity Fund (CEMAEF), which at the moment accounts for P17 million, whilst equity investments account for P138 million and CEDA Venture Capital Fund P212 million.

Vice President Dr. Ponatshego Kedikilkwe recently revealed that collectively these enterprises have created an estimated 30, 607 jobs for Batswana.

“As we celebrate our achievement of the past 10 years, we also reaffirm to Batswana, that CEDA will remain a financial development arm tasked with the responsibility of developing entrepreneurs through the provision of funding, requisite training and mentoring, working together with its sister parastatal, the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA),” said Kedikilwe.