Features
Need to promote tourism sites in the country
One advantage that many countries in Africa and elsewhere have is the promotion of tourism sites that will help to bring in the needed revenue at both the domestic and international levels.
Here in Ghana, the country is blessed with many tourism sites that ought to be preserved and promoted for that purpose. Such tourism sites will help to increase the knowledge of Ghanaians and help them to know more about their country. In addition, foreigners will also be able to come into the country to learn more about these sites and thereby contribute to the generation of revenue for the nation.
ADVANTAGES OF TOURIST SITES
When the local people visit tourist sites, they bring in revenue just like foreigners and this helps to boost the local economy of the area concerned. If for nothing at all, food will be cooked and sold to these visitors. This means that employment will be generated for those who cook the food and so more money that comes in the way of revenue can be used to improve conditions in the local area. It, therefore, means that there will be much improvement in the local economy.
The same advantages will be realised when we think of foreign travels and visits.
What this means is that roads to such areas would have to be improved to make tourism, whether domestic or international, very attractive to all visitors to the area.
INFRASTRUCTURE
It is not only roads that will have to be developed but various forms of housing units in such areas to serve as accommodation units for would-be visitors.
These visitors are people who would have to be treated well to make them comfortable. If they are not made to feel comfortable, they will not be attracted to come back and very soon, people will stop visiting such areas.
The development of tourist sites cannot be done in a day. It will have to be done gradually and in a systematic manner so as to be able to attract more visitors into such areas. If this is done, the tourism sector will soon become the largest income earner for the country.
GREAT POTENTIAL
The potential is there so we need to plan well and execute our tourism intentions so as to make that sector the most important as far as revenue generation is concerned. This can be done so as a people, we need to put our acts together and begin the journey today so that the end result will be achieved with time.
When it comes to tourist sites, they exist in two main forms. These are naturally endowed sites and man-made sites.
The naturally endowed sites include beautiful rivers, unique mountains, animals like monkeys and birds that are not common to find in the world. Other naturally endowed sites may also contain uniquely attractive fountains of water and many other scenes that beat the imaginations of people. Such naturally endowed sites can be found in all the 16 regions of the country and this calls for a special purpose investment to preserve and upgrade them together with certain facilities like roads and accommodation as well as restaurants that will make the place attractive to everybody.
SPECIAL PROJECT
We need to develop a special project for this purpose and if it will mean going for international assistance, we will have to do it and earn more money for the country. What is the point in keeping national habitats such as special birds and animals in the country without making them known to would-be visitors whose desire would be to visit and explore such places to satisfy their curiosity, mental interest and also welfare as a people in the country.
We need a special project, as has been pointed out, to bring this about. Such a project can be possible so we need to work towards it within specified and achievable timelines.
When we come to man-made tourist sites, we also have many of them in various parts of the country especially along the coast of Ghana. We have heard of forts and castles built by colonial masters who visited the coastal regions of Ghana and built them for their own security purposes and also use such buildings to keep and transport slaves from the Gold Coast to other parts of the world.
FORTS AND CASTLES
A good example here is the Fort Santo Antonio at Axim in the Western Region. This fort was properly built and designed by the colonial people who used it for trade in humans and other goods. This together with other sites serves as images of the slave master and the slave trade but can be reversed and modified to serve a good purpose for the people of Ghana today.
Other forts and castles still exist and all of them will have to be utilised to generate wealth for the country, having existed for over 400 and 500 years. Examples are Elmina Castle, Cape Coast Castle and the Christiansborg Castle which became known as the Osu Castle and was used as seat of government by various governments until recently.
The use of castles for tourist sites will mean developing them and roads to attract tourists. One good thing that can come out of this is that apart from income generation, they will help in the education of people in the local level as well as foreigners who will come to visit such places. An interesting point to note about the communities in which these forts and castles are located is that most of the people do not know much about them and the purposes they were used for.
EDUCATION OF PEOPLE
A gradual development and preservation of such areas is, therefore, very necessary for the education of the local people of the communities as well as foreigners who visit those places.
As has been pointed out already, such areas stand the chance of boosting up the local economy to promote domestic trade and business transactions all over such areas.
Thus, when it comes to man-made sites such as forts and castles or naturally endowed tourist sites such as beautiful sites, animals and birds, what we need to do is to put in as much investment as possible to be able to preserve them and make them attractive for sale to people whether Ghanaians or foreigners. This is how both domestic or international tourism can be promoted in this country.
INVESTMENT
However, to be able to succeed in this dream, the investment cannot be avoided in terms of roads, bridges, healthcare, housing, flyovers where necessary, etc. This is how the country, Ghana, can be made to move forward in anticipation of our national aspirations.
Contact email/WhatsApp address of author:
Pradmat201@gmail.com (0553318911)
By Dr. Kofi Amponsah-Bediako
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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