The
Minister of Tourism and Culture has disclosed plans to start the construction
of an eco-lodge hotel in Barra soon.
Hamat
Bah was speaking on Tuesday during a meeting with the communities of Juffureh
and Albreda as part of his countrywide tour to visit all tourism and cultural
facilities under his ministry.
He
assured the people the in the area that the construction is going to happen as
soon as funds are available.
Minister
Bah informed that “when we took over this country, there was total failure and
image of the country was destroyed internationally. As a result of that, we
virtually lost everything and to regain that image with these little resources
on our hands, we have to use our experience and knowhow to convince people to
come back to this country,” he stated.
He
indicated that the number of tourists who arrived during this year’s season is
very impressive, owing it to the fact that tourists that we are looking for are
not in The Gambia that means we are obliged to go out and reach-out to them to
convince them to come back to this country.
“We
need to visit some of our cultural sites and tourism facilities and then see
how much and how best we can do under the National Tourism Expansion Programme
(NTE). The government has started embarking on this by training Gambian youths
to be able to manage tourism facilities.”
He
continued: “We have trained youths and it is important that responsible and
sustainable tourism policy and programmes become the cornerstone of the
ministry and government of The Gambia”.
Dilating
on the road network, Minister Bah assured the people of Upper Niumi that in the
next thirty days, construction on the road will start, assuring that the funds
are already secured.
“We
are finalising arrangement for it to start the construction. As I always say,
the greatness of a country is not measured by the size of its economy or the
size of her army. It is measured by its ability to preserve, educate and
protect the past, using as a source of impression for national development,” he
affirmed.
Minister
Bah further asserted that all the great countries today used their past
experiences and that’s why “when we came on board, we revamped completely and
re-organised the National Centre for Arts and Culture. Now it has grown between
2 to 300% and since we took over, it has change direction and we start seeing
the dividend of that,” he stated.
