By Yunus S Saliu
As a sign of recognition and appreciation for his worthy service at the Ministry and the entire sector, the staff of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, and its institutions on Wednesday gathered at the Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute to bid Honourable Hamat NK Bah farewell and welcome onboard the newly appointed Minister of Tourism and Culture HonourableAbdoulie Jobe.
The event was also used by Honourable Hamat NK Bah who is now redeployed to the Ministry of Lands, Regional Government and Religious Affairs to dilate on his achievements in office since he was appointed the Minister of MOTC in 2017 up to 15th March 2024 that he was redeployed, and he as well made some clarifications about some matters regarding the issues of petition written to National Assembly, the report of the National Assembly and some online publications.
Minister Hamat NK Bah who officially welcomed his successor to the office encapsulated achievements made at the Ministry and all three institutions namely, the Gambia Tourism Board (GTBoard), Gambia Tourism and Hospitality Institute (GTHI), and National Centre for Arts and Culture (NCAC).
In brief, he said since the operation of the GTBoard many years ago, under the Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the GTBoardwas able to get its owned state-of-the-heart building built around the TDA, which is not only that, adding the numbers of the annual arrival increased massively to over 200,000 tourists by air alone before the emergency of COVID-19 pandemic. “And when COVID-19 came we went down to 90,000 but we crawled back and as one of the fastest growing recovery countries of tourist arrivals in the sub-region after the pandemic.”
He noted that a more aggressive marketing strategy was put in place to promote the country to attract more tourists and investors, further training for staff which was not limited to only GTBoard staff but across the Ministry and rest of the institutions, revamping the PR Firm and given it back to Gambian citizens. This is “because there is no one that can know the Gambia better than Gambians. This gave us a good opportunity to promote the country well and they have done extremely well in this.”
Among other achievements under product development, he said there are 12 new hotels under construction and they are about to be completed while the beds have increased considerably in the country since 2017 to date.
He also underlined other achievements at the GTHI which include the establishment of a research unit with the task of developing international recipes using local ingredients, and staff capacity building.
“In 2017, as a new government, we met the GTBoard taking overdraft and it was difficult for them and this government took the initiative of showing commitment and participation in the process of the industry,” he disclosed.
He noted that under his administration the GTHI was also able to develop a curriculum in Agri-food processing, train 200 youth in agri-food processing in rural Gambia, and construct an Agri-food processing center with modern workshops, laboratories, sanitization rooms, and stores with support from GIZ to encourage linkages between tourism and agriculture.
Highlighting the achievements of the National Centre for Arts and Culture under his administration, he said the center has able to strengthen the legal and administrative framework of the sector, the country was able to have two UNESCO Conventions, the 2001 and 1970 conventions ratified, completion of the first inventory of heritage and monuments in Banjul with accompanied management plan for the inventory, digitization of the NCAC Research and Documentation Division Oral Archive of the Gambia and lots more.
Moving on, all the directors used the opportunities to outlinedtheir achievements during this period.
