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Friday, 22 February 2008 |
In The Gambia for example, the United Nations Development Index and other
international stakeholders have rated that country so high because of its
infrastructural development in the area of tourism that has immensely benefited
the West African country.
Records indicate that there are more primary
schools in little Gambia than in Sierra Leone.
How The Gambia came about such
phenomenal success is only a surprise to those who have not studied the economic
activities of The Gambia which is centred mostly on tourism.
Tourism is named
as the biggest foreign currency earner in The Gambia, Kenya, Tanzania, South
Africa, Egypt and other fast growing economies in Africa.
In The Gambia, the
tourism potential is enhanced by two very important infrastructures which have
taken the credit for attracting many tourists to the tiny West African state in
recent years.
The first infrastructure that attracts tourism in The Gambia is
the international airport which is the most important gate of entry for all
those visiting the country.
The international airport in The Gambia is so
clean that even a drop of pin can be picked up without difficulty.
Secondly,
the beaches of The Gambia are some of the cleanest in the world, attracting
tourists from all over the world and keeping them coming back year after year to
swell the income generated from tourism to more than 70% of the Gross National
Product (GNP).
A close comparison between Sierra Leone and Gambia can quickly
reveal that Sierra Leone possesses beautiful beaches than The Gambia but inspite
of this, Sierra Leone has not been able to derive income from beaches for many
reasons.
A pressing question for Sierra Leoneans to answer is – why is Sierra
Leone, which has more attractive beaches, making less money than The Gambia with
less attractive, smaller beaches and population?
The answer could be found in
the way we treat our beaches that create eyesores that discourage visitors to
the beach.
In some parts of Lumley Beach, some unscrupulous persons, who dump
waste in gutters and other outlets that flow into the sea, have caused the waste
to scatter at Lumley beach much to the annoyance of beach lovers.
Secondly,
children who live along the coast have been caught defecating on the beach thus
changing the chemistry that is supposed to be favourable to all kinds of
visitors to become very offensive thus polluting the environment.
Moreover,
operators of beach houses have been caught dumping refuse into the sea such as
cans, papers and polythene bags.
People who sell food on the beaches leave
the place unkempt and when the wind blows, the refuse is deposited at the wrong
places hence making visitors uncomfortable.
The Minister of Tourism and
Culture, Hindolo Trye, recently appealed to the nation to help him revive the
tourism industry, but instead of doing that, people have now resorted to dumping
waste at Lumley Beach, driving away tourists who want to relax in a very healthy
atmosphere.
It is very urgent and necessary for Sierra Leoneans to find ways
and means of keeping their beaches clean even if it means removing makeshift
structures long the beaches to prevent the unsanitary site we are now
experiencing.
And once undesired people have been removed around our beaches,
we must then move quickly to restore law and order to prevent squatters from
returning to the beaches to build shacks which have no bathrooms or other decent
means of waste disposal.
Until we keep our beaches clean and make them
attractive to foreign tourists, Minister Hindolo Trye will keep on hoping for
better days for tourism without realising the better days simply because our
beaches are becoming unattractive to foreign tourists who want to relax only on
beaches that are of international standard.
We therefore look forward to the
return of law and order to our beaches so as to make them attractive again and
at the same time generate income for the advancement of the country.
Minister
Hindolo Trye also expressed the hope that if tourism is developed in Sierra
Leone to the level of The Gambia and Kenya, we could easily generate half of our
foreign exchange earnings through the judicious use of beaches.
The New
Citizen is therefore humbly appealing to the National Tourist Board in charge of
maintaining our beaches to live up to the task.
The
New Citizen Publications
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