Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture
The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Dr. Ibrahim Mohammed Awal, has given the assurance that the ministry under his watch will be the Number One contributor to Ghana’s GDP ahead of cocoa and oil by the end of 2024.
He noted that the ministry through its newly launched domestic tourism initiative is expected to realize some $5 billion from 2022.
“Gold is exhaustible, Oil and Gas are exhaustible but Tourism does not and that’s why it must be the number one contributor to Ghana’s GDP.”
He added, “The tourism sector currently employs over 670,000 people and with the launch of the domestic tourism initiative, we hope to create over 1 million jobs by the end of 2022.”
He indicated that the ‘Year of Return’ in 2019 brought some 1.3 million tourists to Ghana and contributed some $3.5 billion to the country and hopes the ‘Beyond The Return’ from next year, when the Covid restrictions, are eased will bring together some 1.5 million people to Ghana.
Visit to the Northern Region
The Minister was on a two-day working visit to the Northern Region to explore the tourism, arts and culture potentials of the Region and to interact with the chiefs and other stakeholders in the region on how to honest the potentials of the region to create more direct and indirect jobs.
His first port of call was at the Gbewaa Palace, where he interacted with the King of Dagbon Yaa-Naa Abukari Mahama II.
Delivering his welcome address through an interpreter, Yaa-Naa Abukari II noted the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture is a key to accelerated national development.
He called on the sector minister to support an initiative by the kingdom to construct a Dagbon museum.
“As you are well aware, Dagbon is endowed with rich history and historical artifacts which need compilation and preservation in the form of a museum. We will need your support to get a Dagbon museum here in Yendi.”
For his part, Dr Awal assured the king of a befitting museum, which will kick start next year.
From there, Dr. Awal visited the Greenwich meridian also known as the center of the world in Yendi, the tomb of the greatest warrior of Dagbon who was killed during the German-Dagbon war in 1896.
He later met with stakeholders in the tourism, arts, and culture industry in Tamale.
Stakeholder engagement
The Chairman of the Ghana Hotels Association in the Northern Region, Cosmos Hassan Alhassan, who spoke on behalf of all the stakeholders, lamented the unregulated taxes imposed on them, poor advocacy for underdeveloped sites, high cost of lending from financial institutions, several taxes from multiple regulators, among others.
In his response, the Minister noted that plans are underway to regulate the taxes paid by the industry players by 2022.
He further reiterated his commitment to redeveloping all the Centre for National Culture (CNC) offices across the 10 regions of Ghana.
Dr. Awal further revealed that the Ministry intends to create over one million jobs from the year 2022 through domestic tourism.
The newly launched domestic tourism programme is expected to promote tourism within the country while creating jobs.