GHC20bn for Tourism Ambassadors ridiculous – FOCAP tells Nana Addo

Arts-based pressure group, Federation Of Concerned Arts Professionals (FOCAP) has commented on the proposed amount of money by tourism ambassadors needed to undertake their projects.

The group in a press statement copied to Zionfelix.net described the budget of the entertainers as ridiculous. They further pleaded with president Nana Addo to call the sector minister, Catherine Afeku to order.

Read the full statement from FOCAP below:

We at FOCAP are pleased that the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo has very good plans for the Tourism, Art and Culture of this country.

FOCAP therefore wishes to draw the attention of the President and the Finance Ministry to a chart of projects which was displayed during the “Meet The Press” of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture on Monday 29TH January at the Ministry of Information press room regarding projects of some Tourism Ambassadors totalling over 20 Billion Cedis, Respectfully FOCAP believes some of them are ridiculous and we humbly wish the Ministry be called to order.

For instance one of the four proposed projects of Okyeame Kwame is to spend over Six Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH602,534.312) old Six Billion Cedis and over to compose music and run a project to promote consumption of cocoa.

Coincidentally a project has just been launched to give one million SHS students free hot chocolate drinks on according to graphic.com.gh. “Free hot chocolate drinks for one million SHS Students: The national food buffer stock company has announced collaboration with Benjamin’s Hot chocolate to launch an initiative to provide one million cups of Cocoa drinks to students in second cycle schools…..” FOCAP believes from the above it’s better to give free cocoa to be consumed, for them to acquire the taste for them to buy later.

Sam Okyere according to the project’s chart, FOCAP has seen wants an amount of One Hundred and Forty Five Thousand Dollars ($145,770.) which translates to about Six Hundred and Thirty Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis (GHc 638,000.00) to organize a Ghana day festival in Korea to attract tourist. What? FOCAP humbly wish to suggest that the money should be use to help clean the beaches or to clean up some of our historic hotels which are crumbling. The best way FOCAP believes to improve the tourism sector is testimonies from tourist who have been to the countries before. Currently our beaches are in a poor state and not up to standard.

Actress Yvonne Nelson also requested One Hundred Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH 100,000) old One Billion Cedis to produce ten videos, one for each of the 10 regions. FOCAP believes it would be a good project but the Minister Hon. Catherine Afeku stated categorically at the Meet The Press that they have inked a deal with Cable News Network (CNN) and in a few weeks, a crew of 14 members are coming to Ghana to shoot videos documentaries of our tourist sites to be shown on CNN. With this information, FOCAP is asking why the Ministry wants to wilfully cause financial lose to the state by this multiplicity of same service?

Musician Okyeame Kwame again according to the chart projects wants over Three Hundred and Eighty Thousand Ghana Cedis (GH 387,000) which is old Three Billion, Eight Hundred Thousand Cedis to embark on social media campaign to increase tourist visiting Ghana. We believe this amount of money would serve a bigger and better purpose when invested into HOTCATT to build the capacity of service providers in the sector to improve customer care for referrals and word of mouth

Kwame Afrifa Mensah also requested for GH 197,000.00 to have a brass band festival. WOW! FOCAP humbly request that this be looked into critically.

Kojo Preko Dankwa

Convener

0576655656

Mel Kwesi Davis

Convener

0246550298

Enoch Agyapong

Member

0244712136