Business plan writing contest suspended

MASERU – A competition to promote the writing of business plans was suspended this week after the process was hijacked by a shadowy group calling itself the Business Development Service Providers Association Lesotho (BDSPAL).

The BDSPAL was said to be offering services to write business plans to those who wanted to participate in the project.
The group claimed it had an agreement with the Basotho Enterprise Development Corporation (BEDCO), Economic Diversification Support Project (EDSP) and Promoting Enterprise Development (PED) programme to assist in writing business plans and processing online applications.

This week, the PED and the EDSP said they do not have any relationship with the BDSPAL.
Launched two weeks ago, the competition sought to develop and nurture the entrepreneurial spirit among the youths (under 35) and women (under 40) in Lesotho.

The idea was to create a fair system in which only the best business ideas would be developed and funded.
The plans were supposed to be in raw form so that the prospective business people would be helped with training, mentorship and incubation by qualified experts.

EDSP Project Manager, Chaba Mokuku, said they are concerned that a noble initiative had been contaminated by illegal and unethical behaviour.
“We have no option but to suspend this competition because once you offer to write business plans for competitors it defeats the whole purpose of the initiative,” Mokuku said.

“Such opportunism that derails government initiatives is unacceptable. It is illegal because BDSPAL is rigging a genuine competition that was meant to assist aspiring business people. It is also falsely claiming to be working with PED and EDSP,” he said.

Mokuku appealed to the private sector to cooperate with the EDSP and other similar government projects that are meant to help develop the economy.
He said the BDSPAL is undermining the development objectives of the EDSP project.

Applications for the competition opened on November 12 and were supposed to close on December 8, 2019.
A new competition will be launched in due course.

Lemohang Rakotsoane