Citizen contactors urged to consider joint ventures

Chairperson of the Construction sector at Business Botswana Markas Markides has called on local contractors to consider going into joint venture businesses. Speaking on the sides at a business event organised by Botswana Guardian and Standard Chartered Bank this week in Gaborone to unpack the Economic Stimulus Package, Markides, whose observation is that citizens often complain of lack of work, said it was time they consider working with other citizens and foreign companies.

“Government has long encouraged them to do that but they do not seem interested. It’s quite rare to find citizens working with non-citizens,” he said. Joint ventures, he said, would also help in instilling good business skills. “It’s a good way to learn the style of doing business in a bigger league,” he said.

The other concern was the issue of bonds, but he said government has assisted them. Markides hailed the ESP as a welcome development. He said government was spending money to assist citizens, adding that it should be put to good use. “When given projects, citizens must do them and finish them on time,” he said. He however corrected misconceptions on poor performance by citizen contractors saying there were those that are blooming even in the recession saying they can do quite big projects.

His main observation with citizens is lack of succession plans. “The citizen companies we had 25 years ago are no longer there. There is a clear lack of succession plan within citizen owned construction companies,” he sated.
According to President Ian Khama, the economic stimulus package, which aims to accelerate job creation, economy stimulation and economic diversification, will commence during the current financial year and would be carried forward.

Its areas of focus will be building construction, roads construction, tourism development, increase agricultural production and manufacturing. Currently, Botswana has P87,8 billion in foreign reserves.