Hilton Hotel to open in 2018
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday March 17, 2017 16:28
The 148-roomed hotel is being built by Group Five, a citizen-owned company, as the main contractor. There are 12 other domestic sub-contractors, nine of which are citizen-owned while three are Botswana-based companies owned by foreigners.
The hotel, which is located opposite iTowers, will have among others offices, restaurants, gym, pool and conference rooms.
“We anticipate that the construction of the hotel will be done by November this year and then would carry out open activities, which include hiring, furnishing of the hotel just to mention a few. The hotel would then be operational by February next year,” she said.
However Molefe said the completion of the first phase, which comprises the construction of the office space, is expected to be completed in July this year. She said upon the completion of the office space, the BPOPF would be the first tenants to occupy the office space.
“We would be the first tenants to occupy the offices and some companies have already shown interest in occupying the office space there,” she said.
Last year the construction of the P300 million hotel was also delayed by an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) requirement. Botswana’s Hilton Garden Inn will be the 12th hotel in the sub-Saharan Africa. Currently Hilton Hotels, which have been operating for 90 years in 94 countries in six continents, have 4,300 hotels.
Earlier this month the pension fund floated a tender for a new investment advisory consultant after cutting ties with Novare Actuaries and Consultants. South Africa’s Novare was engaged by the pension fund four years ago on a two-year contract, which was extended in 2015 after a tendering process.
However, Novare is still on a month-by-month extension while they undergo a formal tendering process.
The new contract is expected to be awarded by May 31, 2017. BPOPF has over P55 billion in assets with about 60% of them invested offshore.