The Ghana Hotels Association has reacted to a recent promise by the government to introduce new initiatives to boost the tourism sector.
The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori Atta on Sunday said: “The Government will launch eight new initiatives in the coming months in the health, tourism, trade, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors to boost economic growth, which will also contribute to job creation”.
The Greater Accra Chairman of the Association, Benjamin Afunya, reacting to the promise noted that the Hotels Association welcome this news from the government.
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According to him, even though, they had waited for sometime to see action from the government, this development is “better late than never”.
He shared this during an interview with Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show aired on e.TV Ghana and Happy 98.9FM.
“We are happy about this news because we almost gave up. I remember that prior to elections, we petitioned Government and were expecting that something will be done about it. But we will say it is better late than never and we are hopeful that these promises will be fulfilled”.
Benjamin, giving an update on the current state of the hospitality industry in Ghana revealed that business is not booming as it was before. “Some hotels in the past were very busy places but now it is as though they are cemeteries. It is very bad”, he added.
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has said that government will speed up the implementation of its proposed Jobs and Skills Program to promote skill development and offer job opportunities to the youth.
This promise comes after some Ghanaian youths took to social media to express their displeasure at what they describe as a failure on the part of successive governments to improve the lives of the citizenry.
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Thousands of posts backed by the hashtags #FixTheCountry, #FixTheCountryNow, and #FixTheCountryGhana highlighted issues such as rising youth unemployment, dilapidated health system, skyrocketing home-renting structure, poor road networks among others.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah