Government spokesperson Luis Covane said that this project is the result of a partnership between Mozambican and South African companies, contributing with 45 per cent and 55 per cent respectively of the capital required.
Covane said that the idea is to build hotels, restaurants, sports grounds and other facilities on the island. Currently, Xefina can only be reached by boat, and so the investors want to improve access by building a bridge that will start at Maputo's Costa do Sol beach.
Xefina has a grim history. In the colonial past its main use was as a prison, where opponents of the Portuguese fascist regime were incarcerated. The prison, Covane said, "will be turned into a museum, which we believe will be of interest to tourists. It will exhibit items that will help recover the island's history".
Xefina had been "notorious as a political prison, where many Mozambican nationalists were jailed during the colonial period", Covane said that the project is to start by early next year and is set to be complete by 2010, at the time of the football World Cup in neighbouring South Africa.
He said that the idea is to attract tourists who will be coming to the region to watch the World Cup games, and to make Xefina a first class tourist destination.
SOURCE: AIM
