E-Malt.com News article: Namibia: Construction of SABMiller brewery in Okahandja delayed

The Okahandja municipality and South African Breweries (SABMiller) are blaming each other for the two-year delay in the construction of the US$34 million brewery at the town, AllAfrica reported on April, 4.

Cobus Bruwer, SABMiller's country representative for Namibia, says "the delay is as a result of the rezoning of land by the Okahandja municipality".

In April 2010, SABMiller announced that its Namibian subsidiary was to build a US$34 million brewery on 7.2 hectares of land just outside Okahandja.

At that time SABMiller also announced that the construction of the 220 000-hectolitre-capacity brewery, returnable bottle packaging line, and warehousing facilities was due to start in the second half of 2010.

However, to date no construction work has taken place at the site where the brewery is to be built, and SABMiller Namibia has pointed the finger at the Okahandja Municipality.

Bruwer said although SABMiller is "committed to building a new brewery in Namibia," there has been a delay in the rezoning of land.

But Okahandja municipality CEO Ripanda Meroro says the delay in construction is due to SABMiller.

According to Meroro, the rezoning was done in November last year. Meroro says although SABMiller did apply for the rezoning of the land, the Okahandja municipality was informed by the Ministry of Local Government that such rezoning was not necessary as the land was already zoned for "large industrial" purposes.

Meroro says all that was done in terms of the rezoning was that the zoning was changed from "large industrial" to "general industrial", adding that this was a relatively small conversion because the land was already zoned for industrial use.

"The delay is on their [SABMiller] side, they have to start now, there is nothing standing in their way and we are eagerly awaiting them."

SABMiller owns a 60 per cent share in SABMiller Namibia, and the remaining 40 per cent is held by Namibian partners in a broad-based black economic empowerment (BBEE) initiative.

The BBEE component is made up of 20 per cent ownership by Onyewu Investments and the remaining 20 per cent is held by three charitable trusts working on behalf of communities in the Omaheke, Karas and northern regions of Namibia.

In an e-mail Bruwer said that with a brewery on the ground in Namibia, "there will be social development contributions via the broad-based black economic empowerment shareholding trusts which will benefit local communities through education, community health and poverty-alleviation initiatives".


05 April, 2012