Botswana's government still intends to go ahead with the planned listing on the bourse of fixed-lined telco Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL), it announced on Monday.

The southern African government previously set an initial public offering (IPO) of BTCL in November last year, but postponed plans to file the IPO in December. This timeframe was also pushed back to 2015.

Now Botswana's government says the IPO will happen in the first half of this year, according to a report by the AFP.

Speaking during the country's financial budget announcement finance minister Kenneth Matambo said the BTCL privatisation process "is at an advanced stage, with expected initial public offering in the first half of 2015".

Last year ITWeb Africa reported that the delay of the IPO was dictated by a number of considerations, amid the project team working round the clock to bring it to life.

In addition, the ministry said institutional investors felt opening the IPO over the holiday break would not allow them enough time to conduct their own internal processes.

"What has always been apparent is that the complexities and the sheer magnitude of privatising BTCL is a challenging task. It was thus always an ambitious timeline to conclude before year-end, one that all in the project nevertheless believed was achievable," said the ministry.

BTCL is a parastatal that has been operational since 1980. However, it has been financially unstable and is looking to a privatisation move to spur on its revival.