Bagbin urges youth to take advantage of opportunity

Published in the Daily Graphic on 27th Nov 2009 pg 12

Story: Matilda Attram
The Majority Leader in Parliament and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West, Mr Alban Bagbin, has challenged the youth of Ghana to take advantage of opportunities that will help them realise their potential in building a better future.
He said the youth, in using their capabilities at given opportunities would help them create job opportunities for themselves to improve on the socio-economic status of the country.
“We have so many opportunities at our disposal and that can help us build our lives in a better way if we look beyond ourselves. We can channel our talents into useful gains to our own benefit”, he said.
The majority leader of Parliament was speaking at the launch of a tourist book, entitled “Ghana Tourist Guide” in Accra yesterday.
He also encouraged Ghanaians to be time conscious to enable Ghana market her tourism potential on the international front as well as promote the culture of the country through tourism.
The book published by the Rose Tourist Centre in Accra is to serve as a guide for tourists about the various tourist sites in the country.
It had in compilation names of hotels, maps indicating the location of places, beaches and other tourist sites that are of interest to the public within the country as well as foreigners.
The Author of the book and the Managing Director of Rose Tourist Centre, Madam Rose Agodoa, said the book was to announce Ghana’s tourism potentials to the international community as well compliment the efforts of the Ghana Tourist Board.
She stated that tourism was an important sector of development and could be achieved if investments were made to enhance Ghana’s relations with other countries.
“The tourism sector continues to make significant impact not only on the socio-economic development of the country but goes a long way to enhance our international relations. If we are able to package our tourism resources properly, a lot of international conferences, workshops and seminars would come to Ghana”, she stated.
Madam Agodoa, called on private sector operators in the tourism industry to support efforts made to improve on the tourism sector of development in the country.
The Minister of Tourism, Mrs Juliana Azumah Mensah noted that tourism was one of the fasted growing and sustainable industry, providing more than 75 million job opportunities in the world for the youth and people in rural areas.
“Figures from the Ministry of Tourism suggest that Ghana currently ropes in a little over US $1.5billion annually by way of tourism revenue. This figure can be doubled within the next few years if our trade and cultural officers in our foreign missions intensify their efforts at marketing Ghana ”, she said.
She, therefore, appealed to the Ministries of Transport, Road and Highways, departments and agencies to improve the road network of the country adding that “Tourism thrives on good transport systems and a few flyovers would certainly help facilitate movement of vehicles ”.
She expressed gratitude at the publication and commended the author for her contribution to the tourism sector of development.
The book in its next publication is expected to have copies in the Spanish and German languages in addition to the currently English and French language publications.