South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
Dr. Dhieu Mathok Diing, Minister of Investment (left) and Mirzan Mahathir, (Middle) Chairman of Bsmart address journalists at a press conference in Juba on Tuesday |Photo by Awan Achik|
By Awan Achiek
The Ministry of Investment on Tuesday announced a partnership with Malaysian firm, Bsmart to build an investment tower with a conference hall with capacity to hold 1000 people.
Dhieu Mathok Diing, Minister of Investment, said the project was supposed to commence in 2020 but it was delayed due to lack of a partner.
“Investment tower is one of the establishment plans we put in, when I came for the first time in this institution in 2020,” Mathok told journalists at a press conference in Juba.
“It was passed by the cabinet, it was approved to be implemented, and we lacked a partner to implement that project. We made numerous visits to different countries to look for who is supposed to implement,” he disclosed.
Mathok said they will revisit the 2020 memorandum of understanding (MoU) for construction of the tower and other government projects.
“They signed a MoU with Bsmart to come and implement this project with other investment projects which are supposed to be implemented in this country.”
Mathok said the tower will create a conducive working environment and open more foreign investment opportunities in the country.
“Let us hope that is going to be implemented very soon and the construction should start so that we have an enabling environment,” he said.
For his part, Mirzan Mahathir, Chairman of Bsmart said they are already working on a number of investment projects including construction of an investment tower.
“You can see Bsmart is committed to coming here and we are already working on a number of investment projects,” Mahathir said.
He said they will revise the MoU to see how best to implement the project.
“We spoke today about how Malaysia’s experience will help the deal of making something similar happen here,” Mahathir said.
The tower will provide accommodation to investors and also host the headquarter of the Ministry of Investment.
The project estimated to cost 28 million U.S dollars will be funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB), government and other developmental partners.
