About N.dollars 100 million is needed to upgrade the dilapidated Zambezi Waterfront Tourism Park (ZWTP) to bring it on par with other international tourism parks.
Located in Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi Region, the tourism park closed its doors in 2016 following allegations of maladministration.
The government spent N.dollars 189 million for the development of the ZWTP, which is currently under care and maintenance.
In an interview with Nampa, Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR) Managing Director, Matthias Ngwangwama said they need about N.dollars 100 million to upgrade the tourism park to attract travellers in the region.
Ngwangwama called on local and international investors to form a public-private partnership (PPP) in order to invest in the facelift of the facility.
He said the Zambezi waterfront is located in a strategic area and is a gateway to Southern African Development Community countries such as Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“If it is fully developed, the park will be an attraction for tourists and travellers alike to the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). It is also a market access to bigger tourist attractions of Victoria Falls and Kavango Delta,” said Ngwangwama.
Namibia is expected to sign the KAZA UNIVISA Project this year, which is aimed at facilitating easy movement of tourists between the five countries within the KAZA TFCA (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe).
The park has among others an administration block, 15 bungalows, camping site and conference facilities.
The government is now at an advanced stage to have the land on which the park is built transferred to it and have the ZWTP dissolved to allow NWR to take over the facility.
In 2020, NWR agreed to manage ZWTP on an interim basis pending the legal and formal transfer, Ngwangwama indicated.
In essence, he said, the management services agreement proposed that ZWTP retains all the risks, profitability or losses, while NWR was supposed to manage the facility on behalf of ZWTP.
In return for managing the facility, NWR was to receive a certain percentage of monthly turnover from the revenue attributable to ZWTP.
“However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, the required operational funding in response to the conditions set by NWR, the management services agreement proposal did not come to fruition,” he said.
“We are now calling on local and foreign investment in the form of a PPP, to invest in the development and upgrading of this project,” Ngwangwama said.
ZWTP was initially initiated by the Ministry of Finance. In 2014, the park was transferred to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, until 2019 when it was transferred to the Ministry of Public Enterprises. As per two Cabinet Decisions, it was decided to transfer Zambezi Waterfront Tourism Park (PTY) Ltd to Namibia Wildlife Resorts. To date, the legal and formal transfer to give practical effect to the Cabinet Decisions is still outstanding and ZWTP remains a company until formally dissolved.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
