17 May 2015

France and Germany have officially opened consul offices in Maun.

France and Germany ambassadors, who graced the offices' opening ceremony, had presented Ms Isabelle Perrot and Dr Mish Kruck as French and German honorary consuls respectively.

In an interview the German ambassador, Mr Rolf Ulrich, said the office was established after considering the number of Germans residing in Maun who had ventured into tourism activities and other businesses.

He also stated the other reason as a high number of tourists from Germany visiting the Okavango Delta.

Mr Ulrich revealed that the office would promote economic relations within the communities. He thanked Botswana government for its understanding and approval of the office in Maun.

Earlier on when delivering a speech, Mr Ulrich stated that the event marked the French-German cooperation and friendship in Botswana. He said towards the end of 2013, the previous Honorary Consul of Germany, the late Mr Karl-Heinz Gimpel who served for ten years strongly wanted a well established office in the tourism destination area.

“I am indeed extremely happy that we were able to trace and convince Dr Kruck to assume the position as the new German Honorary Consul in Maun. As you would expect, it was certainly not an uphill battle to persuade the German Foreign Minister and the German President to appoint her and also to get the approval of government of Botswana as required,” he added.

Mr Ulrich also noted that Dr Kruck is a professional medical doctor who practiced on various hospitals in some countries such as South Africa (Cape Town), Switzerland as well as Geneva and explained that Maun could not find a better doctor to set up jointly with her partner Mr Christian Gross of Okavango Air Rescue services in implementation of the mission to help people in the remote areas of Northern Botswana.

Mr Ulrich said the duo had invested quite a lot in Maun citing some services such as helicopter of Okavango Air Rescue, newly opened restaurant and the wonderful offices. He said Dr Kruck responsibilities would be broad based including cultural and economic relations between the Germans and the people in Maun and the delta.

For her part, Dr Kruck said some of her responsibilities would be to implement certain consular services to the German community around, providing assistance to them in need of it.

She said the office is more convenient as people would not travel long distance to access services in Gaborone as it was the case before but they would enjoy services closer. ENDS