29 Apr 2018

National Museum, Monuments and Art Gallery curator, Power Kawina says preliminary phase of the Kgosi Kgari I Museum project is ongoing and nearing completion.

Phase one of the project consist of archaelogical management, architectural management, drafting and compiling reports for each management.

Kawina said they were anticipating that phase one of the project would be completed by next year and go on to the next phase of the project.

“At the moment, we are working on a budget of P19 million which was initially P11.5 million,” he said.

He said they wanted to turn Molepolole into a tourism hub.

The whole project, he said would include construction of Kgosi Kgari I Museum, amphitheater, restaurant, curio/art studio, gate house, events park and Mmakgosi house and other buildings.

“The site will be the state of art which will give Molepolole a facelift and promote the history of Bakwena,” he said.

He said connection of services such as water and electricity and fencing of the site would be done during the first phase of the project.

He stated that all application to the service providers had been done and paid for and they were only waiting for the service providers to connect water and power to the site.

He however indicated that they had faced few challenges and were still addressing some of them, while others would be resolved during the course of the project.

“The site, which has been allocated for the construction of the site is rocky and the first contractor who won the tender failed to fence the area, stating that he had under quoted. We had to go back to the drawing board and amended the tender and now everything is on track and the contractor is fencing the site at the moment,” he highlighted.

He noted that they had engaged different stakeholders to assist with finances.                  

He revealed that they had benefited financially from the ESP, National Environment Fund and National Museum and were grateful for the efforts made by these stakeholders.

“The funds that we have are not enough and we will continue to engage other stakeholders  to assist us financially since other phases of the project have not yet been allocated funds.

The project is set to change the lives of individuals as it will create employment for the locals during construction of the site and even after completion,” he said. ENDS