Zanzibar on Tuesday announced plans to build sub-Saharan Africa’s tallest skyscraper, with the US$1.3 billion bill exceeding the archipelago’s annual budget by more than 60 percent.
The 70-story Zanzibar Domino Commercial Tower is to be developed on the west coast, 15km from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Stone Town.
The development project would involve the creation of an artificial island, along with a marina for yachts and cruise ships.
At more than 3 trillion Tanzanian shillings, the total outlay would surpass the semiautonomous archipelago’s budget for fiscal year 2021-2022 by more than 60 percent.
Zanzibar Minister of Labor, Economy and Investment Mudrik Ramadhan Soraga told reporters that the project would bolster the “government’s efforts in inviting more local and foreign investors to the isles.”
ICONIC DESIGN
The finished project would offer 560 apartments, luxury hotels, resorts, a golf course and a wedding chapel, the New York and Dubai-based design firm xCassia, Tanzania’s AICL Group and Scotland’s Crowland Management said in a statement.
VISIONARY INVESTOR
“[The development was] first sketched in Paris in 2009, after my late father, my two sons and I played a round of dominos,” design firm founder Jean-Paul Cassia said in the statement. “I dreamed of building this project for more than a decade.”
“It had all of the bearings of an icon that anyone could remember, Cassia said.
“All it lacked was the right visionary investor and site to make it come true,” he added.
Once finished, the skyscraper would be Africa’s second-tallest building, after Egypt’s 80-story Iconic Tower, which is to be completed next year.
The continent’s tallest building in use is the 55-story Leonardo in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Famed for its turquoise waters and spice plantations, Zanzibar relies heavily on tourism.
The archipelago sustained a tremendous hit from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.
‘THEY KILLED HOPE’: Four presidential candidates were killed in the 1980s and 1990s, and Miguel Uribe’s mother died during a police raid to free her from Pablo Escobar Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot at a campaign rally, his family said on Monday, as the attack rekindled fears of a return to the nation’s violent past. The 39-year-old conservative senator, a grandson of former Colombian president Julio Cesar Turbay (1978-1982), was shot in the head and leg on June 7 at a rally in the capital, Bogota, by a suspected 15-year-old hitman. Despite signs of progress in the past few weeks, his doctors on Saturday announced he had a new brain hemorrhage. “To break up a family is the most horrific act of violence that
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
North Korean troops have started removing propaganda loudspeakers used to blare unsettling noises along the border, South Korea’s military said on Saturday, days after Seoul’s new administration dismantled ones on its side of the frontier. The two countries had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung, who is seeking to ease tensions with Pyongyang. The South Korean Ministry of National Defense on Monday last week said it had begun removing loudspeakers from its side of the border as “a practical measure aimed at helping ease
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
RSS