BoB hawk-eyed as businesses migrate to CBD

The BoB's concerns come as more evidence emerge of oversupply in Gaborone's office space, with a recent property index indicating low capital growth and rental yield in this sector, compared to retail and residential.While relevant data is unavailable, it is believed investments in property make up a sizeable portion of the P34 billion owed to commercial banks as at November 2012.

On Wednesday, BoB executives told BusinessWeek that the central bank was keeping an ear to the ground for all developments within the property market, in so far as these could negatively affect the banking system."There's increasing concern that with the sprouting of properties in the CBD, there will be a migration of tenants there and that can affect the extent to which the owners of these properties who have loans can service them," said the bank's head of banking supervision, Andrew Motsomi at a briefing.