Maravi

Economy can only grow if more are in employment - O’Donnell

Economy can only grow if more are in employment - O’Donnell
By Moses Kuwema in Siavonga
Wed 09 June 2010, 10:40 CAT

PROTEA Hotels Zambia chairman Mark O’Donnell has said Zambia’s economy can only grow if more people are in the formal sector of employment.

In an interview after inspecting the works on the Southern Belle boat on Lake Kariba on Monday, O’Donnell said it was not good to have the economy grow without employment creation.

“…I think one of the challenges is to get more Zambians into the formal sector employment because that’s how the economy grows better,” O’Donnell said.

He said Zambia’s investment opportunities were favourable because the economy was good and growing.

“The government is talking about eight per cent growth which I think will be achieved because the agriculture harvest was good so there is good growth, the economy is stable…you know inflation has come down, interest rates although they are still high I think they have come down a little bit,” he said.

And O’Donnell has said Protea Hotel Zambia would spend about K9 billion on repair works of the Southern Belle boat.

He said everything on the boat had to be modernised and brought up to date.
“The boat will have 22 bedrooms and 44 guests, it can take a crew of about 30 people employed on the boat and 20 employed on the base station so about 50 people employed to operate. The day capacity is about 200 people for the day cruise,” said O’Donnell.

And Protea Hotels Zambia sales and marketing manager Audrey Keane said apart from offering cruises, the boat would also be used for retreats for corporate groups.

“We have had so much response from people who are very much interested in this. We have not finalised on rates yet but they will be reasonable because we are very conscious of people in Zambia wanting to come over,” said Keane.

Meanwhile, Protea Hotels Zambia group revenue manager Leah Gorgel said the boat was moved to the Zambian side of Lake Kariba because of Zimbabwe’s economic situation.

“Due to the Zimbabwean economic situation in the last fives years, Southern Belle has not been a viable option, so we set out on a fact finding mission in October last year and spoke with many people about how much repairs we needed to do. It was in liquidation and in April we sailed it over,” said Gorgel.

Labels: JOBS, MARK O'DONNELL, NEOLIBERALISM, PROTEA HOTELS ZAMBIA, TOURISM

posted by MrK @ 2:41 PM