By Mercy Nsaliwa
Blantyre, Mana: Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife, Spokesperson Simon Mbvundula has said they are waiting for investors to finalize the plans of introducing cable cars on Mulanje and Zomba mountains as one way of improving tourism services in the country.
He made the remarks on Saturday against the background of the completion of a study on establishing cable cars on the two mountains.
Mbvundula observed that having cable cars was an effective tool of improving the country’s economy and tourism sector.
“We have done pre-feasibility study and the good thing is that Mulanje is a popular tourist destination and there are no worries for investors to accept it,” he said.
“Cable cars are intended to assist in creating job opportunities, increasing tax revenue and levies for the country, promoting a sense of pride among citizens and residence, enhancing Mulanje, Zomba and Malawi profile and bringing infrastructural development and of course spill over benefits to other sectors,” Mbvundula added.
He said that the Tourism Department shall provide a marketing strategy to popularize the investment to both local and international tourists.
An Economic Expert, Arthur Ngwende said the significance of the project on both economic and service level sectors.
“The project was suggested long-time ago and if such services are available in the country, it will create opportunities for people to spend more on the service which will bring forex to the country.
“If we have more services those mountains will assist in bringing more money and increase the country’s Gross Domestic Product,” he said.
Cable cars are a type of cable railways used for mass transit in which rail cars are held by a continuously moving cable running at a constant speed.
This is madness. How do you start thinking of having Cable Cars without the necessary driving factors? The Cable Cars being mentioned here need electricity, surprisingly the country cannot provide power for household use, here you talk of fulfilling luxuries – do your heads work?
You have carelessly used up the Foreign Exchange and you think generating it will require feeble and dead minds? That is why Tonse is unable to manage this country because their management is allover. What they are doing is really childish. I previously said it that when we get closer to election time, government will be running helter-skelter trying to prove their existence, but time won’t be on their side. The past 2.5 years they spent lining their pockets with stolen money, promoting mediocrity and fighting the opposition instead of hitting the ground running by running proper government affairs. Kwantele has spent all that time globetrotting and disturbing Malawians by engaging them in his useless local travels, all in the name of development programmes. Merely a day ago he was in Dedza patting himself on the shoulder for distributing sand mixed with expired fertilisers which is being thrown away by those countries. Malawi has turned into a dumping ground because Chakwera wants it to be treated as such. They will continue giving us rotten stuff because the leadership has chosen to embrace trash after displaying his inabilities to lead. Sad for Malawi. What happened to that trip he made to Liwonde concerning the same fertiliser stunts?