LEA Engages Specialists To Assist SMMEs
Ludo Kwapa | Monday May 13, 2019 12:08
Speaking at a recent media tour of select LEA-assisted businesses, the Authority’s CEO, Racious Moatshe revealed that his office has engaged specialists to assist SMMEs. “We have a number of in-house specialists for different sectors. For example, the agriculture sector has in-house special skills that deal with agriculture-based projects,” said Moatshe.
He explained that the tour was aimed at giving the media an opportunity to interact with enterprises they assist as well as to appreciate how such entities continue to walk the entrepreneurship journey with them.
The tour demonstrated the fit-for purpose interventions that LEA provides to the SMMEs that empower them to start and grow sustainable businesses.
In order to further strengthen their relations with other institutions that support the SMMEs sector, LEA invited stakeholders in the area to be part of the tour. It covered SMMEs in Serowe, Palapye and Mahalapye.
Moatshe asserted that they are looking for clients that have been successful in the past to make them accredited LEA mentors.
“We want to use their expertise to be able to guide and support others, which will be a give and take situation where we will continue to help them grow while they help others at the same time,” stated Moatshe.He further highlighted that the Authority have data challenge as they had previously reported.However, Moatshe revealed they have recently tasked their teams to start profiling of products and services offered in the country so that they get to know how much of produce is being produced in different regions so as to match the data with the figures on the import bill.According to Moatshe, stakeholder engagement is key as it enhances their delivery model hence the need to engage in fora away from their headquarters.
“We have to reinvent the way we engage with our stakeholders such as Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency to make it more impactful and meaningful thus encourage everyone to come forth and work as a collective towards achieving the goal of empowering the SMMEs,” he said.