Impasse grips Pilane Mall development

Isaac Pinielo | Friday July 22, 2016 13:09

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, Peggy Serame said PrimeTime Property Holdings, developer of the 7,500 square-metre retail shopping centre, had written to request the ministry to exempt some non-citizen retail stores that are currently operating reserved business activities and allow them to expand their operations in the same line of trade.

“The company was responded to, in clear terms that government reserved certain trades of business activities for citizens or companies wholly owned by citizens as yet another initiative on citizen economic empowerment,” she said. She also noted that as government has the obligation to drive this initiative, a decision has been taken to suspend the granting of exemptions to non-citizen companies to expand and/or open new retail stores in the reserved business space.

She said such companies would be required to demonstrate meaningful participation or involvement of citizens in their businesses as a way of citizen economic empowerment before they could be granted the exemption.

PrimeTime managing director, Sandy Kelly said construction of the Pilane Crossing Mall is on programme and that it is due to open around 28 August, subject to resolution of the licensing issue with the ministry.

“We are hopeful that an amicable solution can be reached. Since we are in consultation with the ministry, we do not wish to make undue ‘waves’ at this juncture, other than to say that we are hopeful that an amicable outcome can be obtained which would be for the benefit of all, communities, tenants and investors,” he said. However, the permanent secretary said there are no issues that will affect the completion of the mall as it can be rented out to any other business, including non-citizen businesses that are not operating reserved trades or business activities.

According to Serame, the supervision of property development falls outside the mandate of her ministry and therefore, the ministry is not privy to the progress on the development of the mall.

“The company has no pending issues with the ministry following the ministry’s response to their letter of request,” she said.

She acknowledged that the ministry continues to dialogue with its stakeholders with the aim of reaching amicable solutions for ease of doing business in Botswana.

Meanwhile, PrimeTime recently reported that it raised P105 million from the capital markets to fund the Pilane Mall project. The company stated that on June 10, 2016 it issued two senior unsecured notes out of the P500 million domestic medium term note programme.

“The BSE has granted the issuer a financial instrument listing and the notes will be listed on the BSE on the 28th June 2016,” it said.

According to PrimeTime, offers were received for P196 million and the total issuance amounted to P105 million for both the five year floating rate note and the eight year fixed rate note.

Kelly said part of the raised notes would fund the development of the retail shopping centre in Pilane and other future projects that are in the pipeline.