Tourism Minister Hamat Bah holds a press conference

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minister ministry of tourism and culture ladies and gentlemen of course the permanent secretary deputy permanent secretary government spokesman mr sanchez chairman of the board directors of the various uh satellite institutions the managers of the various directorates in those institutions and of course members of the press good morning to you i decided to call this mini press conference today to update you on the situation regarding the tourism sector the ministry of tourism and its all satellite institutes on the tourism board the gambit tourism hospitality institute and of course the national center for arts and culture just to update you on so far how much we have gone in trying to bring back tourism as it was uh not of course 200 percent prior to kovic but also just to brief you to show you what we have done and the achievement that we have attained since we worked on our recovery program in the last couple of months together with our stakeholders and all other uh government institutions that have been partnering with us and indeed of course we must take we must thank the ministry the permanent secretary and her entire staff for the job and effort they've been investing in this endeavor and of course we also know that the gambit tourism bought director general and his staff and the director general of the national center for arts and culture and his staff and the director general of gthi and staff and all other association and all other stakeholders who have been working tirelessly to support our recovery plan and program to revive the tourism sector because of the pandemic that is covered 19. the ministry of tourism and culture is pleased to inform the gathering of the latest flight operations to the gambia in which two netherlands started its operation on the 19th of february with a boeing 737-800 series after two years of absent due to covert 19 pandemic they will operate all year round and plants are on the way to increase three group flights frequencies to 12 flights per week from 2022 to 2023 winter season six flights from holland two flights from belgium four flights from the united kingdom destination gambia will currently receive 53 flights per week at the banjo international airport chatted flights are 16 flights several flights are 37 split public respectively the chatted flight includes a quaranton three flights a week two uk four flights a week gambia experienced two flights a week three holland two flights a week tap portugal three flights a week violin two flights a week and hopefully rainbow will be flying once a week from poland we are working on that we are also working on trying to get back uh binta canaria discussions are on the way uh there are financial requirements they've put before us and we are trying to see how we can work it out meanwhile whilst we were in madrid in january we met the the minister of tourism of the of spain and we had very fruitful discussions the spanish government also promised also was going to do something to support and help for the for the resumption of the bintaken afghan area flight which is another important flight that connects spain and gambia as you're aware spain and gambia is about two hours flight uh from from from casa from uh las palmas it's about just two hours flight to by jewel so we are trying to get that flight back and there are a lot of tourists who are coming on that flight then with regards to settled flights air france uh is coming daily uh erp's come four times a week a sky four times a week air senegal six flights a week transfer three times a week royal air mark five times a week talkies airline two times a week brussels airlines six times a week uh the chatted flights are the flights that are coming exclusively with tourists the saddle flights are the ones that come with tourists and other passengers so in total we're expecting about at least uh 30 30 uh uh 30 is it 37 37 flights no 53 flights 53 flight total flights to baghdad international airport and that makes a difference for us the ministry of tourism and culture and the gambia tourism board will continue to work with its tourism stakeholders towards restoring more confidence and tourism growth for destination gambia that can translate into more flights and visitors to destination gambia in the same vein all the achievement of the ministry of tourism and culture that the ministry in collaboration with the gambia tourism board are coordinated on several occasions vaccination campaigns and exercises in various locations in the tourism development area for employees of the tourism industry to be vaccinated in order to boost customer confidence on destination gambia as a safe travel all throughout the period my ministry have been working hard hand in glove with other stakeholders example the hoteliers international tour operators tourism smes paving the way to the opening the tourism industry and here we are today witnessing the arrivals of chatham's flights for the first time since the since the start of convict 19 pandemic also for the first time in the history of the gambia we are witnessing air france flying to the gambia deal let me just give a brief background history on the issue of the air france when i went with the president in 27 on a state visit to france one of the things that we took over with the french government uh was to get air france to fly to the gambia because we got a lot of complaints uh gambians who are based in paris that they have they suffer a lot going through other airlines sometimes they lose their luggages a lot of problem they are going through so we took it up with different government to encourage also to train tourists to come to the gambia to make it easier for two operators and can fly tourists from france to the gambia well the french government said it was a private company they would discuss with them and will started the negotiation and since then france was working on it with the help of mr serber l hatch and other people uh it took us about three four years to get their friends to come to gambia and finally they are here now coming on daily basis we are already requesting at least for three flights a week now we got six flights a week uh turning to the gambia they were flying bamako by banjo but i think now they are flying by monrovia because of the sanctions uh in bamako but with good it's good to have them here because that creates another competition with sn process and tab and other airlines uh talk is because if you realize the prices you would see that now the fares will start going down because the market the market is there people are there to buy tickets and of course the services are also there so we believe that that has been a very successful pension uh bringing air france to the gambia and you know it's an international class airline we all know that and they offer one of the best services so we believe that we'll continue all efforts to make so and regards the issue of vaccination this government believed and we from day one that uh convicted uh pcr certificates are not the solution we believe since there was a there was a vaccine as a government we encourage uh all gambians to go and tax it get vaccinated and that was why we came up with that press list to encourage tourism establishment related service that staff must be taxing and that restored confidence internationally on two operators to bring people to the gambia uh during our last month trip to madrid we took it up in the united nations world tourism organization secretary general that the gambia's position is that we should avoid all this we should remove all the trouble restriction in the world and we strongly advocated for that position and we made it clear to the city general that it is not about restriction kovic is here to stay we're going to live with covic as we are living with malaria as we live it with cholera and other viruses and that argument has been bought today you've realized that most countries even to the uk this morning restricted uh remove all the most of the restrictions and you know that neither lands and swedens australia many countries have followed that idea so the gambia has always been advocating for this and that's why gambia was um was the first country in africa to allow vaccinated passengers to come without a coverage certificate because we believe that it was good to uh to take initiative to innovate to come with policies that would really attract visitors to this country and that policy now has been copied by almost everybody we are among the four five countries five countries in the world and the first here in the african continent to allow people vaccinated without a pcr certificate and that is paying dividends today as we speak today the united nations the unwto sector general is with the double ho secretary general in geneva discussing this issue with him to encourage people to vaccinate and we now remove this issue of restriction and let people be vaccinated and really that would allow people to travel on holidays and enjoy themselves in in different parts of the world so the gambia's argument and position remains firm and we are happy that a lot of people are now copying it with the exception of hong kong i think that's the only place i know in the world which is not moving towards what the gambia have been advocating from day one so we believe and we want to encourage gambia if we really want people to trust our destination let's go and get vaccinated i think it's important that we send this message across and we appeal to the media to promote to help promote this idea of getting people vaccinated and you know the prostrating that we have in this the gambia has got a certificate that is now digitalized our cubic certificate is digitalized our scopic certificate is accepted in uk and many parts of the world so if you have the ordinary certificate before you go and change it to have the the digital certificate because when you have the digital certificate you can use that to travel in most parts of the world without any further restriction so we congratulate the minister of hell our partners for coming up with that with all that effort to get that certificate digitalized and i think that's a great achievement and it complement the arrival of tourists in this country because it makes it easier for everybody so similarly uh three for uh oh sorry let me get back to this similarly three feeder roads within the west coast development area are identified for construction there's the tamala kuntana kintakunte access road the senegambia football field towards mansion beach hotel and golden seafood lemon creek hotel access road both kunta kinte and senegambia football field are currently under construction lemon creek will start soon since we are working with the nra on the level on the level aspect of the road the ministry in collaboration with the minister of health through the gt board establishes coverage testing centers in the tda at the bb craft market in koto and we are working on trying to get three more other centers uh within the tourism development areas hotels we are encouraged to reserve rooms or in this in in designated area for isolation in terms of any positive cases it is important to note only symptomatic positive cases very rare for those with fully vaccinated may be referred to clinics on advice of staff of the ministry of health the mind the ministry through gt board and with support from international trade center youth empowerment project here had trained employees and vendors of the industry formal and informal sector business on these guidelines as well as on inspection prevention and control this training which we are conducted in all the regions of the country help the employees and vendors of the tourism industry to be equipped with knowledge and skills in control and prevention of this spread of copic 19 virus in the industry as well as in their various communities the ministry had also through the government through the tourism board distributed face mast distributed face masks throughout the country distributed face masks throughout the country and for the gambia for the for the gthi for gambia tourism hospitality institute also which is a satellite institute of the ministry of tourism the development uh the development of a revised curriculum to international standards in tourism and hospitality with adequate teaching and learning materials at certificate level that meets the needs of the industry nationwide provide professional tourism and hospitality vacation training for over 3500 youth during the period on the review facility facilitate training at masters degree level four members of staff extra place a fully equipped bakery center in the capacity to train 100 bakers and pastry cooks every year we want to increase this number we are collaborating with the ministry of trade to make sure that we train at least 200 bakers in the country because we want to take over the bakery industry back into the hands of gambians and the only way we can do this is to train gambian to be able to take it over we've started that with 100 gambians we want to increase that we are collaborating with the ministry of trade so that young gambians can be trained to be bakers and we start baking our own bread our own gambian bread and not foreigners breaking our bread and that's one of our key objectives as a ministry and we are working on that as we speak the establishment on a digital digital library with volumes of reading materials the development of of gta application for digital e-learning this application has facilitated curriculum delivery during the covet 19 pandemic which led to schools closed as a result the institution did not lose time during this period in a bid to decentralize tourism activities nationwide an expansion program in tourism and hospitality training in rural gambia is initiated in jajamura and in central river region in partnership with yep with 240 young gambians build capacity and and create employment opportunities establishment of a research unit within the task of developing international recipes using local ingredients thus creating better linkages with agriculture cooperation agreement with ecole nationale the formation hotel a tourist of the car casa africa of spain ai visiting pestering lecturer from dakar to cover pastry two units of diploma level for one month in the gambia closer cooperation and collaboration with private sector which has resulted in the review of student internship resulting in earlier in earlier commencement of the placement in hotels in preparation for the engagement only around tourism gthi teaching and learning up for virtual distance learning has been developed we have also extended scholarships to some of our neighboring countries few scholars inviting two per country to come and we extend our our hospital to help them train uh train them to be able to train people in their various countries we have also done that and i think this is uh guinea guinea-bissau uh cerelion uh which other i think couple of other countries we have extended this was this gesture and then offered them two scholarships to bring their citizens to be trained in the gambia [Applause] yes for the national center for arts and culture the ncac with support from the minister of tourism gambia tourism board has continued to financially support the successful organizational festival in the past two months alone close to ten festival and more are coming for cancun festival gt bot supported uh over 550 000 to ensure a successful festival all the festivals supported by ncac and gt board are as follows cancun festival that's the janja murray one next year we intend to have it at a national level because it will be 200 years anniversary for the arrival of slaves at at at janja murray free slaves from jamboree we will need to have a national festival for that one because we want to make it international the 200 years of arrival of uh of return of slaves uh to janjambure banu was 2016 and janjambure was 2022. 20 23 years so 1823 so we want to internationalize that one and of course our international festival where root festival also will be incorporated so we'll have one week of festivities throughout the country to mark that particular very important year in gambian history then you have the balunca festival which of course just ended no longer the dance gambia festival sudukova festival nyaninja festival gemma chosun festival abu kojali susho festival support to ban your cultural groups also in last december we supported all the night activities of the the hunting societies in banjo we give them support all of them because we also don't want that culture disappear or fit in to insignificance we want to maintain because we see a lot of tourists come to attend that program for all over the world gambians all over the world really come to attend that activity that festivity so we as a ministry we thought it was important to to support them financially so that they will have more uh enhancement in getting the program done better on heritage the works for the rehabilitation of park memorial obelisk is at the at the current about will be officially kicked off by the honourable minister in few weeks that means the mongol park memorial has been left out for so long and not nothing was done by government and this government believe that something needs to be done because we want our children to learn who will read about park when they go they will find something there that they can recollect that they can remember that they can talk about so we are trying to build state-of-the-art facilities uh at that place i mean the tender is already done and i think they are on the purse of finalizing uh the the the bidder who actually won the bid to finalize necessary documentation for them to start work following the completion of all the needed procurement processes 1.8 million

has been given to ncac by the ministry for rehabilitation which will include side museum perimeter feds and visitors convenience uh the honourable minister will use the same period to formally open the fully refurbished kerber stone circle uh stone circle perimeter fence shown circle side in nanny which was also reformist with monies from the government of the gambia from our development budget the works included water water supply new perimeter fence and a new side museum exhibition and office spaces and visitors convenience close to 25 community youths in barra and environment and wasu and environment have been trained in tour guiding and also women in this heritage host communities have been trained in various skills to make souvenirs and we also want to confirm that what also is completed uh the wasu stone circle museum and the rest of it that one also is completed and as we speak now uh we are working with the world bank to make sure that at least contact island is restored back to its galore and many other sites that are about to sink so a lot of efforts are all the way we've gone too far too advanced but since we are not yet there we just have to say that we know it should be done and we are working on it to get it done uh i think uh on that note uh ladies and gentlemen madam permanence if i have forgotten something that you want to add you're most welcome isn't now we welcome you and we'll open up for a few questions uh for clarity and any further information you want to give out something yes well the tourism policy let me also say well the tourism policy is completed validated and we just now have to cost it and to uh get it implemented that's we are working on you know that we also got the cultural policy done uh two years ago so because we are working without a policy and the policy will dictate the strategies that you're gonna employ so we now have to complete that one and work on upgrading the master plan which i've also i found we found all this document we are obsolete they are all outdated but i believe uh as an institution you need to have a policy in place to direct you as to how you strategize in getting your things done oh so we are working on that and on that note mr government spokesman you are also welcome if you have anything to ask uh before we follow the questions you need to have something anybody else who want to add something that i left out doubter uh dps okay good so now we'll allow madame can you control the question and we allow them few questions you see the reason why we did this is to restore confidence in gambians those who thought we've lost it we've not lost it we are behind the scene working to bring this thing back because we know the importance of tourism to this country we know our youth need these jobs we know our men and women need this job so we are doing everything possible to make sure that we get to this impact it's not restored hundred percent before the banks would start running to running after uh hoteliers and orders to pay their debts we are recovering we are moving we are just kick-starting we are just let the banks understand that we are just moving now so we are not yet there but we are moving towards there and we believe that the future is very bright and people have started coming but let them understand this will have a lot of things to sort out locally and as a result they still need the space to be able to move on thank you thank you very media as much and now we invite you to ask this question thank you very much uh you have given your speech and we see that most of the what you have said revolved around the nairobi recovery slides and then one thing is almost left out that probably that is how you imagine the tourism within thank you very much this is a this is a center stage of this government we believe that regional tourism is one of the solutions we need to adopt because if you realize the number of africans who are going out of africa for holidays they are in millions if those people were to spend their holidays within africa that would have moved the african gdp to a higher level some of them are in miami some of them are in paris london tokyo all over the world they fly with a lot of money they go to spend to enjoy with their families so this government is aware of that and one of the few countries we are targeting right now is the west african market particularly countries that are around us including nigeria ghana senegal guinea bissau guinea cornacree mali all these countries once there is connectivity it makes it easier our biggest problem now is air connectivity in this operation and not only according to but the high cost of airfares is a problem if you look at the countries where there's a lot of movement of tourists you find etiquettes with budget airlines very reasonable you can fly from munich from munich to london with 50 euro you can fly from brussels to casablanca with 100 euro you can fly from paris to london with less than 100 euro different areas different parts to germany for about 50 euros so we'll use budget airlines so we need to find a way how we can really encourage this budget airline to come on operate here so that even as you uh grade 10 you can save your money for two months three months fly with your family to bamako come back or to any other region and spend a holiday and come back so really these are things we need to work on right now it's easy to fly when you are in quebec you can fly easy easily to brazil without a lot of money okay buddy and go there on holidays for about 500 dollars on holidays so i see no reason why we cannot get tourists to come here flight because the air connectivity it is not there it is making it difficult and that's why as a government we have to work with stakeholders and partners how do we create this air connectivity to make traveling easier in our sub region and the gambia is on the move towards that now there are no railways here that connect people in europe people travel by rail some travel by car if you travel by car the number of checkpoints you have sometimes you better just park your car and go and these are some of the problems we need to address even in within our own country now gambian have started going to visit their own country we have now seen gambian being tourists in their own country i visit certain places when i go to afghans go to other places and i see new establishments that are coming up and the gambians want to visit they have gambians who live all their life they have never been to barcelona some have never even been to berkama you know at this we want to change this attitude we want gambian to explore their country but the first we must facilitate that there must be companies that can create poor companies that can have fitting uh transport services or buses that can transport people to go on weekends and come back from different parts of the country and even neighboring senegal because you see senegal is coming here in big numbers now you go to tamala you go to many hotels they are full every weekend this is because people are coming to our country as tourists and we need to encourage that but our biggest challenge there is connectivity but we are trying to address that now thank you very much honorable part of my question or the answer for my question has been just which that is the domestic poison issue i was going to ask how much have you achieved in terms of you know getting people interested in reaching cases within the country but now that we have death figures but then what are you into but i want to have anything to do in the next few years to make this thing a good market well we are right now our program with the world bank if it succeeds i think we will succeed in getting the budget airline in the gambia we are working on that and uh both the minister of tourism minister of finance everybody is working on that 24 hour around the club we hope that uh we will get there and that we will be able to have the resources to get budget airlines to come to gambia i mean when you want to fly to ghana it takes you 100 euro you go to ghana and come back but the other thing that the government had done was to negotiate with the senegalese government to domesticate the gambia banjo route to remove all taxes in it we've signed those documents and i think that will soon skip start i thought it was it has or even started but somebody made i made to understand that it has not yet after all the formalities have been done i think you should fly to dakar right now with less than 100 dollars to the car really because all the taxes now we have we've agreed as to government to remove them to make it easier for gambians and senegalese to interact to move by air so it makes it uh less costly so that we should be able to move in we have worked on that since we came in and yeah last year when the president went to on a visit to dakar he took it up with president sal and from then on we have been working on it and i think all the documents were assigned as far as i know so i don't see any reason why i think we need to make a follow-up on that to find out what is really causing the delay in getting that done thank you very much during your deliberations you may have mentioned the support that the tourism ministry is doing in in a way to revive culture cultural revival and of course in as much as politics concern rural gambia is also important hotels and other monuments and recreational centers are basically within the greater banging area and our strong um are in the rural areas what is the foreign ministry doing when so that culture is diverse is is not only over but thank you very much i think one of the reasons why we believe that we need to rehabilitate those sites was to make sure that we retained them in their most original form and that to make sure that also when you go there you visit them you are comfortable and that's why we invested since we came to power we've been investing a lot of money in making sure that really where we upgrade those facilities and that's why you see wasu is done get back is done and now we are working on kunta kinte we are working on all other areas of concern to make sure that really these things are addressed yes the ministry doing anything or any effort to try to build hotels for example yes let me also let me help you on that we are initiated of building five lodges in the country we started with three lodges and the rose lodges should have been completed by now but i think the gt borrowed into trouble with the contractor and i think that matter is being resolved immediately and i think in the next few weeks we will resume the construction of those lodges and complete them that's just a start and the ministry of environment also secured funding through the un and i think they are also on the value of constructing some other lodges within certain parts in the country and there are other gambians who have also invested money in building standard hotels uh up country and i think when you see them you will like them you are one in base one in kudang one in bangsang and i saw a couple of them also in the north bank and i think marum have just completed one in in and i saw also in jajari another one there so gambians are coming up investing uh in these facilities and they're seeing the returns because they believe that gambians want to move now we were very static at one place we didn't move now that gambians are moving exploring their country i think it's better to have the standard facilities there so we are moving on that i can assure you that in two years you can go with your family on a holiday at a cheaper rate yes [Music] my questions is i have two questions but i don't know whether and then i haven't had the name of jeffrey part of the places that you know that we'll be having festival and then dubai is well known for hosting homecoming thank you move on to the next question i'll give you the answer okay thank you okay the second question i have is with regards to the restoration of uh kunta kita island if you go to ufa like the places where our students will visit right the places like stone house san domingo those places are no logo area for students now even toys because they are i guess they have been abandoned for many years now i have been there just recently and then i visited the places i was even afraid to go there alone i have to go with somebody else samingo and stone house let me let me let yeah let me answer the first question i would ask ask him to comment on the other one right now he has to because that is under his responsibility you need to update me on that because that's news to me so we will ask him to throw light on that because he's responsible regarding the issue of festival we have organized a committee that was in charge of organizing the international route festival making it national this time it was going to be a seven day festival and i think yangyang was chairman of that committee but when kovi came we could not move again it got stopped somewhere now what we want to do now the janja muri international festival return of slaves you want to now connect it to that one have one national festival that will take over the roots and everything together and that hopefully next year we'll all be there to celebrate it by the grace of god yes hassun can you comment on what he said i think it's important tragic about that because somebody wants to you know clear power so really that's the context i mean i mean it is you know sorry in that you know thick in the bush and and that's how it was put into the universal list and that's how we are want to keep it okay but always you know for a guy you know so that you'll be able to i mean i mean i don't pay them anything for getting bored and yes yeah the place is the context it is surrounded by i want to say it is in the forest but there were infrastructures there but those infrastructures now come what are those in fact what and and usually what we are told because they are useful with these properties is that to do as much as possible to minimize then we do i mean but even to take it up i mean it's a very very laborious you know very technical i mean i mean i mean i mean process that we have to go through so so um we just need the ruins as they are they contain you know that is a comprehensive unesco i mean intervention like we have done with the cfo building that building came now but now you should stop again and it took like three years you know of careful you know work on the united stand and let me add something there too mr director the branding crocodile uh pool we are also working on the estimate to try to protect that area to fence it and protect it we are working on that too i think you've gotten the costume done so we are working on that just to add up to that okay yes so next question um encourage them to test us thank you very much i will tell you that we are one of the best institutes in africa one of the best that much i can attest to that but do we have the capacity for all of them to be trained here the answer is no but do we have the will and the desire to allow other countries to bring their students and pay yes but you must give them the taste of it first before they can come and that's the reason why we are doing that you know we are from the same village with all our troubles yes like yeah they are working on it they are finally i think i don't want to because these are legal issues but i can assure you very soon you will hear the final decision what we we have to be on the move it must be done i have two more issues well let me help you with tropical i think really i don't understand why they are talking about tropical topics topic is it tropics let me help you when i came to this ministry i found that there was a contract signed by the previous government and what they signed was they gave this com construct company to build a shopping mall and on top of the shopping mall will be the minister of tourism and gt board there i never saw this contract i've never seen it it was contract is not house here it was a gt board but when they told me i told them categorically i will never have a ministry and a gt port on top of a shopping mall there will be no productivity it will never happen i said go renegotiate the contract they negotiated the contract and the man is building them a new headquarter it will soon be ready i don't know the noise about this for me i really don't know why they are talking about trophics for us that's the knowledge we have i have never seen this contract and that contract is our house here i only insisted that i will never as minister be on top of the shopping mall and my agency beyond the shopping mall i said no so that's all i know about this nothing more really that's why when i hear people talk about this it becomes straight to me i didn't see i have not even seen it i don't even know what is there. why is thinking though let me help you let me help him you see when you ask you the answer don't at least ask questions we answer the question let me tell you that i got information that there was mining happening last monday there was a government task force that visited the area including the president's office all the ministry is concerned we are waiting for the report and government will decisively take action to protect the environment of this country very handsome young man we are working on all those roads you see let me tell you here let me help you let me help you you are very important no i'm coming i'm coming i'm coming you see since in the 70s government have not invested anything in the td in terms of infrastructure when i came as a minister i believe something needs to be done and we could not get this money from government so the idea i came award was listen to me carefully i am the one speaking and quote me for what i'm saying there was this policy when you apply for land they ask you to deposit five percent of your money and that when you complete they give you back the money i said this i will not accept it we need to raise money to build these roads supply electricity put lighting system and everything from here to cattle so the idea i came with was i went to inform cabinet that i'm going to charge ten percent that when you when you are about to when your project is approved anywhere in the tda 10 of your money is deposited as a levy but i think it was too expensive so i i felt that the businessmen were saying i cannot give you 10 percent of my capital when i have not even started working and i felt they were right you know you have to accept when people have genuine agreement before you i accepted the argument i said now i'll make it five percent they started the five percent that five percent money is what we have gathered to build these roads to build these lodges and all this road infrastructure you are seeing we are doing and we intend to build put traffic street lights connected with internet all throughout it's not a one-day job but you have to start somewhere and that's why we started we are now on the roads on these roads now they are building now they will move to the next stage and that's why i refuse that money to be used to pay salaries when coffee came let me recreate that money i could have given the okay but i said no i will not give that money for salary let you keep that money for infrastructure and today that money is there being used for infrastructural development for our tourists and other people who are part of the tda we will never have got those rules built today if we have not saved that money and that five percent is still my discretion if i believe somebody is investing huge huge amount of money and that you you you request for a reduction i'll consider it possible and if i feel it is genuine i will do it it's my discretion it used to be free of charge i am the one who removed that free of charge that people also have to contribute towards those investors because we need to give you water electricity road networks seaweed everything if we have to what is my discussion today if i want tomorrow i scrap it but i will not stop it i'll maintain it but if you want to invest 40 million dollars or 30 million dollars i will not take five percent of your money i will not but i will take something reasonable out of it to meet that coffer and let you go with it because you have to also encourage people to invest what used to be free now you are paying you have to be reasonable with it so that's my poison on this so now we have the last one of the new standards efforts that canada is taking in terms of trying to make traveling easier for people how easy it is the first impression they said is everything in tourism and uh knowing fully well that at your airport there is a lady on traveller come in and leave it and this has a lot of compliments among even our own brothers and sisters as a ministry are you not going to look into this and review it and ensure that you look into it to see the complaints that are making let me make it abundantly clear this ministry was not involved and it's not part of that levy categorically clear we were not involved and we are not part of that levy and we are doing everything possible to address that unfortunate situation at the airport the kills and the trouble our tourists are facing at the airport you can quote me for this statement thank you somebody came behind you late john ah mr john yes he's late man yeah but you are late we don't know where you are we are talking about where you were we said just you are late one more question one more question yes who is that yunus mr tourism man yes i i have one thing to announce to you and that is the tourism figures for 2020 we had 89 232. that was a massive drop because of cubic from 230 something thousand we ended up with 89 000 that was kovik and year 2021 we had 102 446 stories let me repeat 2020 89 232 arrivals 2021 102 460 arrivals for the year 2020. we hope that 2022 will be a greater year with all these two operators now coming back with all these flights coming back and we've started seeing our youth enjoying their marriage perimonies and programs and and grand rovers moving everywhere towards guides and moving on and that makes use happier and it makes the economy also moving along yes and you've made questions about the flight in terms of uh yes yes air access yeah access committee yes it was covered by kovic we are they are yet to present their report and we are working on it we want to put all these things into the world bank project the tourism policy also have captured it yes don't worry you are absolutely right you have a good memory yes for coming and we hope to see you very soon again so if you have any more questions in the future we have our directors here mother mother um yeah okay now if you the papers he would organize it the dps will organize give it to madame wong and she will give you the statement okay if you need it for accurate excuse me if you need it for accurate quotations okay if you want to receive monies from uk europe usa canada switzerland and the rest of the world supersonics money transfer has got you covered with the largest payout network in the gambia you can now receive your monies anywhere you are from car tongue to coiner with less hassle yes you can receive moneys from your family and friends in uk europe usa canada switzerland and the rest of the world with our safe secure fast and convenient service that offers you the largest selection of payout locations in the gambia supersonics money transfer we are currently in 34 african countries and counting giving you quality money remittance services that are second to none visit the google play store or the apple store today to download the supersonics money transfer app and enjoy excellent money transfer 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2022-02-25 16:27

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