Anant Singh, chairperson of Dreamworld Film City has issued a statement in response to comments made in the Cape Times article of 24 August 2007 which said the City of Cape Town is considering withdrawing its R19m for bulk services for Dreamworld unless there was confirmation within the next 30 days that the multimillion rand development is still going ahead.
Singh says he is quite surprised by the comments made by Simon Grinrod (Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Development) as the Dreamworld team had a fruitful meeting with representatives of the City of Cape Town on Friday, 24 August to sort out outstanding matters.
“With respect to the delay, Dreamworld has been waiting for the following issues to be resolved:
- Dreamworld responded to the draft agreement with the City of Cape Town in December 2006, however, there has not been any formal response from the City since then.
- Heads of Agreement were finalised with Wesgro in August 2006 and this has been with the Wesgro lawyers since then.
“There is certainly no delay from Dreamworld, rather the delay is due to the above mentioned issues and the EIA process that took over a year. We had hoped that the project would have been far more advanced at this stage.
“All the finance and other elements to commence the project are in place, except for the finalisation of arrangements with the City of Cape Town and Wesgro.
“Dreamworld has actively progressed the project since we were awarded the rights, incurring significant costs in acquiring the land, and making substantial investment in the project on an ongoing basis, all out of our own resources.
“We have confidence in the potential of the South African film industry and we believe that Dreamworld has the ability to harness this potential to the benefit of the entire industry. This has been echoed by National Government who have also declared their support of the film studio development.’
