Glass project under-budgeted by P800million
Bame Piet | Tuesday August 18, 2015 12:55
This is P800 million more than the projected cost of the project when it commenced in 2008. The project was a joint venture between Botswana Development Corporation and Fengyue China.
Two years after it was liquidated, sources close to the project have confided in Mmegi that the BDC has in fact spent approximately P700 million and has given up on pursuing it. Initially, the corporation said it had spent only P400million.
Three companies from the US, China and France had indicated interest in investing in the glass project, but two have since gone silent.
“Yes, I can confirm that an American company is coming here this week, but at this stage I can’t discuss further the details of the company or what we are going to discuss,” said the liquidator Nigel Dixon-Warren.
The BDC appointed Dixon-Warren as liquidator of the project nearly two years ago after a conflict ensued between BDC and the Chinese investor who has since vanished.
The project, which was initially scheduled for completion in December 2012, and expected to have been operational by January 2013, has given the liquidators a headache as there were no records of transactions, machinery acquired, suppliers, and whether any market research was ever undertaken.
When the Mmegi team visited the site of the failed project in November 2013, it was manned by security guards amid reports that some people had helped themselves to equipment, particularly gas cylinders.
In an advertisement published last week, the liquidator stated that he would be selling to the highest bidder; Float Glass plant and equipment, land and buildings (100 hectares), Coal Gasification Plant, construction plant, and Oxygen plant.