Kazungula ferry to be converted into floating restaurant
Tenders will be awarded to Batswana
Botswana Tourism Organisation ( BTO) is the next custodian of the 11- year- old historic Kazungula ferry which operated across the Zambezi River before the monumental multibillion state of the art bridge started operation on Monday, Botswana Guardian has been told.
The latest model of the ferry was designed and manufactured by local company, Power Serve Pty Ltd, trading as Aliboats in Maun after being commissioned by government through the Central Transport Organisation in 2011 at a cost of P16.5 million. Throughout its 11 years rich service history, the ferry generated slightly over P30 million.
Effective Monday, the machine that traversed the deep waters of the Zambezi River will serve as a restaurant docked in the water and owned by private Batswana investors just a stone’s throw away from the monument that rendered it redundant - the Kazungula Bridge. It is government’s thinking and directive that it will become a very critical part of the country’s history - particularly the history of Kasane, and will become an iconic feature and centre of attraction. To add value, it will be turned into a restaurant so that it gives people the experience as is the case in other countries where old boats are converted into restaurants. Officially, CTO handed it over to the Ministry of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism ( MENRCT)
– the umbrella body of BTO, and in turn through a tendering process, a rightful investor will be identified. Permanent Secretary in the MENRCT, Dr. Oldman Koboto told Botswana Guardian that the ferry is going to be integrated into the KasaneKazungula facelift.
The minister is expected to do a ground breaking for the construction of an office space for all the government offices that are going be moved from the riverside. A site has also been identified where those ferries are going to be docked and turned into a floating restaurant. Tenders will be floated and “awarded to Batswana for them to operate and our expectation is that they will use the story behind them to market themselves and to complement the bridge”.