Below is an article published by The Citizen:

Zanzibar is  likely to be dropped from the World Heritage Sites list following  controversy of the Mambo Msiige building in  Stone Town.

There are plans for Mambo Msiige to be turned into a multimillion dollar five star hotel. And, although some officials oppose the move, the Zanzibar government has signed a $1.5 million agreement with ASB Holdings Limited of Dubai which also owns Tanzania’s Kempinski Hotels.

The unit chief of Africa Section of the Unesco World Heritage Centre, Mr Lazare Eloundou Assomo, told The Citizen on Sunday from Yaounde, Cameroon, recently that the issue would be discussed this month. But any development would make the conference remove Zanzibar from the World Heritage Site, he warned.

Mr Assomo said in case of any major rehabilitation the government would have first to inform the Centre; but as of today no communication had been made to Unesco for the changes at the Stone Town site. “The Unesco World Heritage will definitely remove Zanzibar from its list if it goes against the regulation of the inscription, and could become the third property to be delisted from the World Heritage Sites as we have not been informed,” he said.

Mr Assomo said Unesco would discuss the issue at the 36th session of the general conference  this year. At the centre of controversy is an open space and the Mambo-Msiige, a historic building at Forodhani, between the Aga Khan Cultural Foundation and Kempinski Hotel. It is believed that the government has decided to lease the area to the Saudi Arabian firm.

The government has granted a 99-year lease of the area comprising the Mambo-Msiige building, Starehe Club and an open space at Forodhani Front to Kempiski. The company will rehabilitate the historic building and develop the open space according to Zanzibar Stone Town Conservation Regulations.

The Zanzibar minister for Information, Culture, Tourism and Sports, Mr Abdilahi Jihad Hassan, told The Citizen on Sunday  last week that he was not aware of the agreement. He, however, explained that an extensive inquiry would be made to see if proper procedures were followed. He said the ministry was supposed to be informed about any major rehabilitation project.

“We don’t have any information, but what I know is that the investor may have got the go-ahead from higher authorities,” he said, but without specifying which ones.

The Unesco World Heritage Centre said Zanzibar would be dropped from the list of world heritage sites for proposing to construct the five star hotel on its Stone Town cultural site.

It also warned that if  any major rehabilitation or new construction was done on the famous Mambo Msiige, Stone Town would be removed from the World Heritage Sites list.

This would make Zanzibar the third to lose its status since the World Heritage list was established in 1972.

The other is Germany’s Dresden Elbe Valley, dropped in June 2009 due to construction of a four-lane bridge at the heart of the cultural landscape. The first was the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman, home to the rare antelope. It was dropped in 2007 following reduction of its land by 90 per cent for hotel investment by that country.

Officials say the loss will damage both Stone Town's reputation and affect tourism revenues from the proposed hotel at Mambo Msiige building, which is at the heart of the dispute between conservationists and investors.

Stone Town is a breathtakingly beautiful area with magnificent Arab houses that were built in the 19th century. The plan is to change the building, famous as Mambo-Msiige, into a tourist hotel.

The planned hotel will be built at the Forodhani sea front and already, Unesco has raised concern about these new developments which might impact negatively on the Island.