Okavango River bridge captures Botswana’s conservation story

By Boniface Keakabetse for Okavango Express

In a momentous occasion, Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Masisi recently opened the 1 billion pula (£36.4 million) Okavango River Bridge in Mohembo.

In 2016, Government of Botswana contracted Italian Company, Itinera-Cimolai Joint Venture to construct the iconic 1.2 kilometre-long, cable-stayed bridge across Okavango River.

The project entailed the construction of 1.161 kilometres of bridge and about 3 kilometres of approach roads, as well as associated drainage, electrical installations and reticulation to the bridge. Part of the works, including roadworks and electrical installations, were reserved for citizen contractors.

The bridge came as a sigh of relief for the communities in Okavango who had spent decades of inconvenient dependence on an unreliable pontoon to cross Okavango River from west to reach ‘overseas’, as the eastern side of Okavango is called by locals.

Mohembo is a village separated by Okavango River having 2,500 people on the western side and 700 people on the eastern side majority who are fishermen eking a living from the river and crop farming.

Speaking during the official opening event Chief of Mohembo Village Paulos Shakova said the ‘freedom’ ushered by the new bridge to the community is unprecedented.

“The days of the sick waiting by the pontoon for hours are over. We used unreliable traditional canoes (mokoro) to cross the river. If this river could talk, you’d hear stories of how many canoes have capsized carrying building materials to the eastern side. Stories of how many people have died, their boats overturned by territorial hippos in that dangerous crossing. Now we can move freely at last.”

Inspired by Botswana’s conservation success, the Okavango River Bridge is designed to represent elephant tusks, paying tribute to the African Elephant. Botswana has more than 150,000 elephants, the majority of which are concentrated in the Okavango panhandle in the eastern Okavango.

Project Engineer Kobamelo Kgoboko told The Okavango Express that the design pays tribute to Botswana as the country with highest African elephant population in the world owing to the country’s conservation ideals.

The Okavango River Bridge design was inspired by the late Minister of Works and Transport Lesego Motsumi. Former Minister Motsumi died aged 67, three weeks before the…