New Lake !Gariep Tourism Route to unlock central South Africa

• Johann Dannhauser

One of the highest impacting developments in the central region of South Africa for a long time, takes place this month with the formal introduction of the new Lake !Gariep Tourism Route. Spanning three provinces around the country's largest inland water mass, the route is inescapably to impact reverberatingly on tourism development, economic progress, ecological management, job creation, social advancement and other developments in the surrounding area.

Completed in 1971 as an outstanding achievement by any standards in structural and social engineering, the immense potential of Lake !Gariep (first known as the Verwoerd Dam) has yet not nearly been fully exploited. Now an integrated tourism route around the dam has been structured in such a way that for the first time the true socio-economic potential of the dam and its adjacent areas is being purposefully addressed.

The Lake !Gariep Tourism Route is the result of long and meticulous planning by a triprovincial Working Group, known as the Lake !Gariep Initiative, representing the Free State, Eastern Cape and Northern Cape Governments and complemented by the Ukhahlamba District Municipality and the Gariep Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape, the Xhariep District Municipality and the Kopanong Local Municipality in the Free State and the Bo-Karoo District Municipality and the Umsobomvu Local Municipality in the Northern Cape, together with a host of private stakeholders and tourism product owners. The process came to a head in January this year an Implementation Action Plan was approved.

The first phase of this plan comprises the introduction and development of the Lake !Gariep Tourism Route. Further phases comprise other socio-economic sectoral developments, such as SMME promotion, agro-processing, etc. - all aimed to develop the region as an integrated, cross-border unit.
As such the Lake !Gariep Initiative is an exemplary example in South Africa of what can be achieved through co-operative communication and synergy between various provincial governments and municipalities, between the public and private sectors and between various population groups. This seems especially true if all sorts of hidden political agendas and selfish demands are being kept in abeyance.

An idea of the content and magnitude of the Lake !Gariep Tourism Route is being presented on pages 4 - 11 of this edition of the Free State Business Bulletin. Although clearly still in its infancy stage, the initiative unmistakably has all the potential of a giant in the making, set to unlock socio-economically the central part of South Africa.

Perhaps the biggest challenge for this momentum now put into motion, is to keep it above the social ills and material greed that such rapid progress invariably attracts. Especially to protect the ecological richness of the region notwithstanding economic progress, which can even reach the extent of a mini-Gauteng powerhouse, would pose a particular challenge.