The grand opening of the Mall of Africa in Johannesburg generated a lot of excitement on Thursday.
Shoppers camped outside their favourite retail outlets hours before they opened.
Situated in Waterfall City in Midrand, Mall of Africa lays claim to the title “the biggest retail facility in Africa”, with more than 300 stores occupying 131 000 square metres of retail space.
Traffic volumes on the M1 highway leading to the mall and around the Waterfall City precinct were worse than normal on Thursday morning and ground staff at the mall said queues had started to form outside three flagship stores at around 5am.
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Vincent Mokoena, a ground staff member, told the African News Agency (ANA) that hundreds of shoppers who had wanted to camp outside stores overnight to be first in line on Thursday had to be sent away on Wednesday evening.
“We chased away many of these people last night but they started arriving back around 5am,” Mokoena said.
“We have not slept for two consecutive nights preparing for this day. It has been hectic.”
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Shops that really drew the crowds were Swedish clothing chain H&M, Game and the electronics shop Dion Wired, which slashed prices on many products as they opened the flagship stores.
Gauteng Premier David Makhura arrived at 7:30am to officially open the mall, which is expected to create about 14 000 jobs.
AFRICAN NEWS AGENCY