Basotho Enterprise Development Corporation (BEDCO), Revenue Services Lesotho (RSL), and Standard Lesotho Bank (SLB) officials have jointly called for  Melele;s participation in a third phase of Bacha Entrepreneurship Programme.This occurred during their outreach at the district;s taxi rank on Tuesday.BEP is a project driven by BEDCO with the support of SLB and RSL with the aim to help

youths aged 21-35 with qualifications from Grade 12 and above to start businesses as well as improving the existing ones.In an interview with the Agency, Mr. Moferefere Makutlu, BEDCO;s Business Advisory Specialist said a budget of M1million has been set aside for BEP and each business is eligible for the maximum of M200 000. He said it will be distributed among five businesses that will benefit from the project this year. We want to promote entrepreneurship mindset amongst youths so as to arrest poverty that is exacerbated by rising youth unemployment, he said adding they usually bemoan access to finance hence through the initiative they will access it.

He said individuals or a group can apply for the grant. He said the major challenge faced by youths is sustainability because they want to start when there is money.Once there is money, they get discouraged when they encounter other challenges that they did not anticipate and struggle to overcome them. It becomes a mess hence we now prioritise businesses with two operations at least because we do not want to dump resources, a lesson learned from our previous grants. However, this doesn;t stop people with innovative ideas that can fill the gap in the business space to apply.