7 July 2008
Someone once remarked that if Sir Seretse Khama International Airport was as busy as the Gaborone Bus rank at month-end, Botswana's only international airport would be one of the busiest in the region.
The observer was mainly talking about the arrivals and departures of long-haul buses on routes to the north of Gaborone and principal district villages and towns contiguous with the capital.
Yet this high-volume bus station is not of much use to some of the businesses operating there because it tends to attract un-gazetted vendors, hawkers, pickpockets and shoplifters.
For businessmen like Bipin Awasthi, the Managing Director of Gaborone Hotel - or the GH as Gaborone's oldest public house is popularly known - the present state of the bus station impacts badly on his business, which he purchased from the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) for a handsome amount a few years ago.
Awasthi, who recently added a casino to the GH, says he has appealed to the Gaborone City Council (GCC) and even raised the issue of the state of the bus station with the Office of the President (OP).
"One of the main reasons for the downfall of this investment has been the poor image of bus rank area which is associated with sleaze and unsavoury characters, especially squatters and pickpockets," he says.
"These unlicensed hawkers and shelters have mushroomed all around to the extent that pedestrians have to walk on the road and traffic gets jammed frequently. There have been occasions whereby some vendors even put pool tables onto pedestrian ways and offer these games at a charge," reads a letter Awashti wrote to the OP.
In the letter, Awashti also complained that potential customers and tourists from neighbouring countries give the GH a miss because of the sleaze associated with the bus station, the perpetual traffic jams and the slum image of the area.
"It is affecting our business adversely and making the investment very risky," he wrote.
Awasthi would like to see the Gaborone Bus Station uplifted to the level and image of other high-volume stations in neighbouring countries, such as Park Station in Johannesburg.
He has a number of suggestions to that end.
These include widening the access road and building another access/exit road through land belonging Botswana Railways adjacent to the GH. As for the illegal vendors, they should be accommodated in the city council stalls next to the GH and the rest removed from the bus station.
In addition to his letters, Awasthi says he has held a meeting with the GCC and other stakeholders at which traffic congestion and the vendors and their unsightly erections were discussed.
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Something should be done about that bus rank. It should be world class with terminals and more orderly. They should make it a high rise bus rank with a park in front for people to sit and wait and maybe even have picnics. Get rid of the crime, sleaze and vendors especially fr it being so close to the CBD. I would propose they put a busrank and a parking gartage with a small mall on that land.