Ghana to construct iconic tower in Tema – Minister
Ghana would soon construct an iconic tower at the Centre of the World in Tema in the Greater Accra Region as a way of attracting tourists to the country and rake-in more revenue for the State.
The iconic tower would uniquely identify Ghana, which would be similar to that of the Liberty Statue in New York, USA, the Eiffel Tower in France and the Guddingburg Tower in Germany.
Madam Catherine Ablema Afeku, the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, made the disclosure when she took her turn at the Meet-the-Press Series in Accra.
She said the Ministry would collaborate with the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, the Tema Gulf Club and the Tema Community Presbyterian Church under the auspices of the Ghana Development Tourism Company, to construct the tower as part of the Centre of the World Project.
She said Ghana was the centre of the World, which is the Greenwich Meridian. “It was determined by the powers and the authorities at a meeting which took place almost a century before Ghana became a nation,” she stated.
Madam Afeku said people often visited the Tema Presbyterian Church to pray at the Centre of the World, while Ghana’s First President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah use to go there when he was alive once a year for spiritual retreats.
The Minister said the project would be marketed locally and globally to attract people to have their weddings and engagements there, advertise goods manufactured locally, as well as link the Centre to the rest of the world so as to rake-in more revenue for the State.
“For instance, the Tema Golf Course could be accredited to host golf tournaments at the Centre of the World through a Memorandum of Understanding and transform the Golf Club into a first-class golf resort, transform the Presbyterian Church at the Centre into a religious tourism site and develop passenger and cruise ship terminal and also construct an iconic tower there,” she stated.
The Minister said Ghana would host the West Africa Integrated Travel Forum between 17 and 19 of March, this year, in Accra.
She said the forum would provide a common platform for tourist administrators in the West African Sub-region to share ideas and find a common ground in takling the challenges confronting the tourism industry.
She said the forum would help players in the tourism industry to have a common understanding in ensuring flow of tourists across countries in the West African Sub-region.
“When we plan together as a region, we improve our tourism revenue because our friends in East Africa are doing it and so we want to replicate that because they have multiple destinations, which enabled tourists to visit all tourist centres with seamless visa controls,” she said.
Madam Afeku said the Government’s vision was to make Ghana a tourism destination hub; therefore, all efforts were geared towards investing in projects that would help achieve that feat.
She stated that, the Accra Tourist Information Centre had been renovated and would soon be commissioned as a convention and business bureau with the aim of attracting major events to Ghana.
The Minister said the Centre had three major restaurants to promote Eat-Ghana initiative and a Customer-Call Centre where both domestic and foreign tourists could make enquires on various tourist destinations in the country.
Source: GNA