SWAZILAND Investment Consortium (SICO)
has assured its shareholders that the company will not give
up the flower project earmarked for LaMgabhi area.
Vice Chairman of SICO Gideon Dlamini said the company was
looking at different opportunities available for them to
go ahead with the project as planned.
He stated that they were looking into securing another partner,
after their Botswana partner - Fabulous Flowers Botswana
- developed problems and had to be dropped from the local
project.
“The official position now from the meeting we had
last year is that we will start scouting for another partner
since the initial one encountered problems. Another option
is to go solo as a company, but with the assistance of a
technical person,” the chairman said.
He stated that the Botswana company was to offer financial
assistance to the local project as they had been involved
in the same project in their country.
expertise
Dlamini said they would consider seeking expertise from
other countries like Zimbabwe, which has also been involved
in commercial flower projects in the past, but due to economic
problems in that country, these had to be abandoned.
He further mentioned that none of the company’s money
was transferred to the Botswana company, assuring SICO shareholders
that their money was safe in Swaziland.
Dlamini said there were other projects, outside the flower
one, as the company’s mandate was to invest into different
sectors, as long as there were viable projects.
Investment
“We are looking at the wider investment range and
there are a number of opportunities that we want to take
up. However, we still see LaMgabhi as the ideal area for
the flower project, which is why we are going forward with
the project with the options at hand,” he said.
The chairman further said they would be meeting with some
of their prospective partners next week in Durban where
they were in the process of finalising one of their possible
projects.
He stressed that they would move the flower project forward,
with the assistance of the Swaziland Investment Promotion
Authority (SIPA) and government, with the hope of seeing
the start of the project by end of January as they would
know which direction they were taking.
Dlamini extended the company’s apologies to the public,
especially the LaMgabhi community, for the delay in starting
the project as initially planned.
He explained that the problems with their initial partner
came to light at a rough time, when most businesses were
closing for the festive holidays.
“When we tried to negotiate with some prospective
partners, most of them were unable to give us clear answers
at that time, but we will follow them up this time and hope
to conclude the matter so as to get a way forward before
the end of the month,” he said.
Dlamini also stressed that there were other projects they
would take up as their mandate was to create value for the
shareholders who were now awaiting to reap benefits in terms
of interests from their investments. He assured the company’s
shareholders that they would work hard at accumulating profits
for them, also stating that by the end of the year, SICO
would be a household name.
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