- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:46
- Written by PETI SIYAME in Mpanda, DAILY NEWS
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MPANDA District Council in Katavi
Region plans to transform the area into a satellite town, a business hub
and centre of learning by constructing four ambitious projects worth
over 660bn/-.
The projects include construction of
Katavi University of Agriculture (KUA), modern shopping mall, market,
bus terminal and upgrading of eight kilometres of roads within the town
to tarmac level.
Mpanda Town Council Executive Director,
Mr Joseph Mchina told the ‘Daily News’ on Tuesday that the funds are
expected to come from various development partners including the World
Bank and the Commercial Bank of Africa (CBA) as loans.
According to Mr Mchina, three years ago
the council envisioned to build the university at Kazima area in Mpanda
town at a cost of 650bn/-, where more than 500 acres of land have been
allocated to that effect. Mr Mchina said that thus far CBA has already
accepted to disbursed over 4.5bn/- as a loan for feasibility studies,
curriculum development, project writeup and some of the funds would be
spent on compensating people to pave way for the construction of the
university.
The bank has agreed to finance the
project after being satisfied with several guarantees by the council,
including evaluation of the 500 acres of land set aside by the council
for construction of KUA which is worth 3.6bn/-. Mr Mchina mentioned
other guarantees as the acceptance by African Trade Insurance Agency
(ATIA) to insure CBA’s loan.
Upon completion of the university, he
said, apart from teaching modern farming techniques, it will also offer a
special programme on bee-keeping. Other three planned projects will be
financed by the World Bank which include construction of a modern bus
terminal at the cost of 4.2bn/-, with eight companies already having
expressed interest in undertaking the project.
“The other project is construction of a
shopping mall that will cost 4.9bn/- from the same financier,” hinted Mr
Mchina. He also revealed that the town council in collaboration with
the National Housing Corporation (NHC) would jointly construct a five
storey building that will have a conference hall at Paradise area and it
is expected to cost 2.5bn/-. The project has been scheduled to start on
May 12, this year
