Ushered in in 2017, the Debswana Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy (CEEP) has now transitioned into the second phase that entails pushing for local production of raw materials.
The purpose of the policy was to impact socio-economic development in Botswana by using the Debswana supply chain and its influence.
The CEEP strategy seeks to create socio-economic development opportunities for the citizens and deliver a shared citizen spending value of P20 billion and 20,000 jobs by 2024. About P3.35 billion of that amount or 44 percent has already been spent on citizens. Infact, since 2019, Debswana has spent a total of P11 billion on citizens under the CEEP.
Last year, Debswana announced that CEEP would begin to focus on localising key strategic contracts such as fuel and logistics, advancing various manufacturing initiatives, Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM), CEEP transformation, support for local repairs, accelerating business cases on small stock and the chemical production value chain.
Drilling operations
“The way we have structured CEEP is two-phased,” Koolatotse Koolatotse, general manager at Jwaneng Mine told The Business Weekly & Review this week.
“We are done with Phase One, which was about giving jobs to Batswana. That is why we saw us parting ways with Majwe Mining and Komatsu in terms of services.” Two citizen-owned companies, Medupe and Tlou Drilling, have been engaged to carry out drilling operations at Jwaneng. A host of other services, such as tyre repairs, have also been awarded to citizen-owned businesses.
Of the P20 billion of CEEP money, Jwaneng Mine was allocated P7.8 billion for spending locally. However, Koolatotse said the amount is not all spent locally. “After we gave them money for their services, which they deserve, they go and buy the raw materials from outside the country, which has now triggered Phase Two of CEEP,” he explained.
Phase Two is about facilitating these raw materials to be manufactured domestically. “The moment you manufacture them here at home, those industries are going to employ Batswana. “Even transporting them from one place to Jwaneng will be a Motswana-owned truck,” Koolatotse said, emphasising the intentional affirmative action purpose of CEEP.
HDPE pipes
Regarding progress on Phase Two, Koolatotse said the High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) pipes that transport water are already manufactured in Botswana. “We don’t buy any PPE from outside the country,” he noted. “It’s either you say Batswana are not capable and go elsewhere or invest energy in training them. We have taken option two – we will train them.”
Through CEEP, Koolatotse said they have employed 800 people and are now going for 1000. “The majority of the people that we will bring on board will come from manufacturing and services. “We have started that. We are also going to go into things like supply chains,” he said, adding that this will involve those who buy on behalf of Debswana.
