Zotus, BITC double down on $50bn project dream

Pauline Dikuelo | Sunday November 9, 2025 12:31

Since the announcement of the Zotus group’s plans, criticism has erupted over the planned financial scale of the project as well as the technicalities, such as a lack of water and infrastructure in the planned area.

More serious doubts have been raised about the backgrounds, experience and fidelity of the Zotus Group promoters, as well as the extent to which the BITC has committed government, either financially, physically in terms of land access or in terms of lending the country’s hard-fought global brand equity to untested project partners.

In an extended briefing last week, the BITC and Zotus officials doubled down on the plans to build a $50 billion (P670 billion) smart city near Gantsi, which they say will “position Botswana as a leading regional logistics and innovation hub”.

Officials said the mega-development is expected to create thousands of jobs and open new investment opportunities across multiple sectors, reinforcing Botswana’s drive toward economic diversification and industrial transformation.

According to Zotus Group founder, Davison Simango, the project is currently in its advanced planning stages, with groundbreaking anticipated in the first quarter of 2026. The second quarter will focus on securing permits, whilst production and construction are expected to commence in the third quarter of the same year.

“We are currently in talks with two African banks that are keen to invest in the project. We will reveal them once negotiations are complete,” said Simango while declining to provide details on the banks, citing non-disclosure agreements. “Our Ambassador, Didier Drogba, has also met with the Dangote Group to explore areas of collaboration.”

Simango added that Zotus Group, as the project’s manager and developer, will attract institutional investors to bring the Kalahari City Project to life. He noted that the company has partnered with Surbana Jurong from Singapore, known for its work on Kigali City and Singapore’s Smart Nation Programme, as well as BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group, the renowned architects behind Saudi Arabia’s Qiddiya Giga Project.

For his part, BITC Chief Executive Officer Keletsositse Olebile insisted that the state investment marketing agency has conducted comprehensive due diligence on Zotus Group to ensure credibility and alignment with Botswana’s national development goals.

“BITC upholds a rigorous and transparent due diligence framework as part of its investment promotion and facilitation mandate,” said Olebile. “This framework ensures that all investment proposals and potential partners are thoroughly vetted to confirm their integrity, credibility, and consistency with our economic transformation priorities.”

Olebile explained that this multi-stage process includes extensive market engagement, coordination with stakeholders, investor background verification, and project validation before any investment is approved or operationalised.

“As part of this framework, BITC’s due diligence includes corporate verification assessing investor registration documents, ownership structure, and jurisdictional presence and reputational and compliance checks through market intelligence tools and global AML/CFT databases,” he added. “With respect to this particular project, both corporate verification and reputational compliance checks were completed. BITC continues to work closely with relevant government offices to ensure all due diligence steps are finalised before any formal engagement or investment commitment.”

Olebile added that the BITC had not financially committed itself to its partnership with Zotus, thus far, as the project was still at a preliminary level. He stressed that the partnership was still at the Memorandum of Understanding level, where the commitment required by government and agencies such as BITC was low.