Reports Leo Odera Omolo
INFORMATION emerging from Zanzibar says the revolutionary government is reported as planning to launch a full scale investigation over the alleged irregular award of contract to develop a popular cultural site into a five star class hotel.
The controversy, which some government officials says is affecting a former cabinet member, they insist carries a risk hurting the country’s tourism, sector.
Mambo Msiige, an old cultural building is to be redeveloped but Kempinski at Stone Town. But UNESCO World Heritage Center has warned that this could see one of the most popular tourist attractions, in the Zanzibar Island, being struck off the prestigious list of World Heritage sites.
The Isles Minister for Information, Culture, Tourism and Sports in the semi-autonomous Revolutionary Government Abdilahi Jihad Hassan was widely quoted by the press last week as having said that the government is soon going to launch an extensive inquiry on some government official who have issued investment certificates without the government knowledge.
The Minister disclosed that the government would soon form a task force to probe the controversy.
“The government is supposed to be informed on any major rehabilitation project, but we have not had any information. What I know is that the private investor may have got the go-ahead from higher authorities,” the Minister told the EASTAFRICAN weekly without giving details on the lists of officials to be investigated.
It was further reported, however, that a decision on the Heritage Site will be made next month during the United Nations Education and Scientific and Cultural Organization {UNESCO} general conference.
Meanwhile, a team of experts from UNESCO is expected in the country this week to assess the situation on the ground and consult the Isles government.
If de-listed, Zanzibar would become the third Heritage Site to suffer such a fate since the creation of the World Heritage sites in 1972.
Mounting opposition to the development of the site is high from environmentalists’ and conservationists on this Indian Ocean archipelago, with critics reportedly asking UNESCO for a thorough review of the situation.
Among the world renown heritage sites removed so far from the Unesco list is Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley in June 2009,owing to construction of a four-lane bridge at the heart of the cultural landscape.
The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman, a home to the rate antelope was the first to be dropped from the list in 2007 after the government reduced the sanctuary’s land by at least 90 per cent for a hotel investment.
Some official in Zanzibar says the loss will damage both the Stone Town’s reputation and its tourism revenue.
The proposed hotel, the critics maintained will ruin the city’s unique low-rise skyline and dwarf its neo-classical architecture, which includes 500 different type of workmanship reflected in brass studded carved, wooden doors, and a fascinating labyrinth labyrinth of narrow streets and alleys.
The planned hotel is to be built at the Forodhani seafront. The Zanzibar lobby groups said it was not consulted prior to plans to release Starehe Club – an open space- and Mambo Msiige building to the new investor.
However ,Issa Makarani, the director general of the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority, admitted his group were fully involved in the planning of the hotel, adding that the architecture heeds conservation regulations.
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