In an unexpected move, the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture (MYSC) has announced migration the Department of National Services and Internship (DNSI) account from the biggest banks in Botswana, FNB and Absa, to Stanbic Bank Botswana Limited (SBBL) .
Stanbic has been awarded the tender to facilitate monthly payments of allowances to all participants under the DNSI programmes for a three-year period effective 1 August 2021 with participants remaining with the bank for this duration. The bank’s mandate is to continue delivering and demonstrating the value of their solutions and offerings in order to retain the participants as and when they transition from the programme to other avenues. This includes their absorption into the formal sector and/or venturing into their own businesses.
Commenting on the move, SSBL Head of Consumer and High-Net Worth Client segment, Portia Motshegare, noted that it was a major milestone achievement for Stanbic Bank Botswana.
“From the three programmes collectively, Stanbic Bank anticipates to onboard in excess of 20,000 participants,” Motshegare said. “About 95 percent of the participants will be on boarded on the Youth Account whilst the other 5 percent on our newly launched platform business, Unayo. All these customers will be new-to-bank customers to Stanbic Bank.”
At Absa, the Public and Media Relations Officer, Spencer Moreri, said the bank did not renegotiate to retain the clients and that the tender was only for a specified period.
“We accept that this is a tender with very clear terms of reference,” Moreri explained. “It is worth noting that Absa was first awarded the tender in 2015 and we have over the years serviced on average 15,000 beneficiaries per year through various channels. We do realise that the switch will have an impact on business as it affects the number of customers.”
The ministry had carried out a competitive bidding for the procurement service of paying participants’ allowances as required by the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act. “Several banking institutions responded to the call to express their interest to facilitate disbursement of allowances and the appointment of a new service provider was a result of competitive selective process,” DNSI Acting Director, Geoffrey Gare, told The Business Weekly & Review.
DNSI is a unit under MYSC with the core function of offering unemployed citizen graduates a chance to develop work skills and experience that will support them in the transition from school life/academia to the working environment through attachments in various organisations in Botswana. It is also responsible for facilitating payment of allowances of the three internship programmes that are currently available.
With this tender, SBBL will provide banking services for the Botswana National Service (Tirelo Sechaba) which has a participant threshold of 15,000 with a monthly allowance of P700 per month per per participant and a maximum contract of 10 years.
For the Graduate Volunteer Scheme (GVS), the participant threshold for this particular programme is 1,500 and a monthly allowance of P600 per month per participant on a contract of 12 months. The main programme, the National Internship (for graduates), has a participant threshold of 6,000 and a monthly allowance of P1420 per month per participant for a duration of 24 months.
