Barry Streek A Caledon church’s decision to gamble with the odds and invest in a new casino has paid off, with the church’s empowerment trust having just bagged its first substantial pay-out of R1-million. And when the Caledon Casino, Hotel and Spa opens its doors on October 1, the Overberg Community Trust will receive 10% of the casino’s profits on a regular basis. The Anglican church in the sleepy town placed its daring bet when it agreed to sell some church-owned land for the new casino.
Before selling the land, the Caledon church had to run the gauntlet of the local and national Anglican Church
establishment and secure the blessing of Archbishop
Njongonkulu Ndungane. It also had to persuade the local community of Middleton and the trustees of the Diocesan Trust to sell the church land. The bet suffered an early setback when British gambling giant Ladbrokes withdrew from the original casino bid and, at one stage, it looked as though the whole venture would collapse. But in its withdrawal agreement Ladbrokes agreed to pay R1-million to the Overberg Community Trust if a casino was eventually developed on the site.
Shortly after a consortium involving Concor and an empowerment partner, Jolinde Construction, which has 30% of the construction venture, moved on to the site, two representatives of Ladbrokes flew to South Africa to meet the representatives of the trust. A few days later, a R1-million cheque was handed over to Reverend Richard Arendsen, a local Anglican priest and chair of the Overberg Development Trust, by Kevin King, the joint chief executive of Fortes King, the Cape Town-based
hospitality group that is one of the partners in the new casino.
The other partners in the casino are the United States gambling enterprise Century Casinos and the Overberg
Empowerment Company (Empowerco), in which 181 local, previously disadvantaged people invested R287E000 when the original bid was made. The company also benefited from the withdrawal of Ladbrokes because the London-based company paid it R250E000 when it quit.
With the requirement by the Western Cape Gaming Board that 80% of the labour force, both in the construction and in the casino complex, is recruited from the Overberg region or the Western Cape, the investment by Empowerco and the R1-million grant to the Overberg Development Trust, the Caledon Casino, Hotel and Spa, which incorporates the historic hot springs in the areas, is the first major investment in the Overberg region since 1994.