Corruption, ineptitude and general nitwittery are the main obstacles to bring more investments into Africa

UNWTO SAYS AFRICA NEEDS STRONGER BRANDING TO ATTRACT INVESTMENT – SOMETHING WAKISO DISTRICT AND UGANDA’S ROAD AUTHORITY ARE YET TO FATHOM

(Posted 04th February 2015)

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‘Investour 2015’, held alongside FITUR in Madrid last week, brought together potential investors and promoters of projects from across Africa, focused on the tourism and hospitality sectors.

The joint UNWTO, FITUR and Casa Africa initiative is now in its sixth year and has become a central platform for companies and African tourism authorities to promote investment and commercial opportunities in the continent. This annual event is also a key forum to debate some of the most pressing issues affecting tourism in Africa.

‘Supporting Africa´s tourism is supporting the region´s economic growth and employment, bringing immense opportunities for development’ said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai. ‘In order to fulfil Africa’s tourism potential, key challenges such as infrastructure development, travel facilitation and the full usage of modern technologies to maximize marketing and services needs to be addressed. INVESTOUR facilitates fruitful partnerships that helps transform these challenges into opportunities for a brighter future in Africa and a more inclusive growth for all’.

The Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism of Spain, José Manuel Soria López, in reference to the many tourism prospects in the region added his own voice when he said ‘We always hear that the future holds many opportunities for Africa, and the future is now’, Luis Padrón, Director General of Casa África, was equally positive, highlighting the region’s democratic and economic advancements when he said: ‘I am sure that cooperation and the ´know how´ of the Spanish companies, many of them world leaders in tourism, can be of great support for joint projects in Africa’.

Participants concluded that while governance across the region is steadily advancing, the sector needs further recognition in national agendas in order to secure much needed financing, namely for investment in infrastructure, training and statistics. Other issues highlighted were the need to increase visa facilitation across the region, the pressing need to efficiently promote positive stories about tourism in Africa and the urgency of building a strong brand for Africa.

Attending the Forum were the Ministers of Tourism of Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Iraq, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Senegal, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the Secretary of State for Tourism of Guinea-Bissau, alongside experts from the African Development Bank (ADB) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) Training and Development Institute among others. Sadly absent was Uganda from the forum where lessons could and should have been learned how investors need to be treated.

A prime example of what stinks of attempted extortion and corruption, and hopefully will questions be asked by the powers that be, is both directions and access to a prime lakeside resort development, the Lake Victoria Serena Resort, which is located off the main road to Entebbe.

At the turnoff are found a dozen and more signs on the road side, plus hundreds more along the main road from Kampala to the airport which is some 45 kilometres away, and yet has the road authority apparently singled out Serena to chop down their sign. Figures quoted from people in the know run into the tens of millions of shillings to put a new sign up, ‘approved’ by the road authority misfits, while all other signs remained in place, unmolested and undisturbed, suggesting bias at best and much more sinister motives at worst.

The first 9 holes of what is to become an 18 hole championship golf course, will be ready by Easter this year, alongside a dedicated club house serving both golf course and the adjoining new marina.

Yet getting there, apart from the guessing game people now have to use to find the turn off from the main Entebbe road, is a bugger of the highest proportion, considering the dirt track leading to the resort. While Wakiso district ‘leaders’ have apparently in the past beat a path to the door of the hotel, seeking jobs for sons and daughters, uncles and aunties, wives, friends and other relatives, have they singularly failed to bring a grader and roller with them. That would have helped to ensure that the road is in a half way decent shape for clients coming to the resort and in the future for the expected large number of golfers and water sport enthusiasts using the brand new facilities, which the resort owners are putting up at a cost of multi-million US Dollars.

Taking taxes and licence fees requires that government at all levels equally invests in infrastructure and services, and removes elements hostile to genuine investors. The owners of the resort are genuine, as is the management company, far from those chaps who ‘invested’ in a charcoal grill to serve maize kobs on the road side, or invested in the past in mobile display cases to then hawk their wares to the public. Those often received a more lenient treatment – Kampala Capital City Authority has since banned hawking in the city – than appears the case quoted here. Added questions are of course running hot in people’s mind here in Uganda, why a sister company of Serena, Air Uganda, was exterminated by the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority last year and if there is any substance in rumours that the investor, which has among other projects spent nearly a billion US Dollars to build the Bujagali hydro power plant, is being ‘targeted’ for reasons best known to those who did and do the alleged targeting.

So when UNWTO calls upon African governments to play a greater role in attracting investment and brand themselves as investor friendly, it goes without saying that a change of mindset is required at several levels among Africa’s bureaucrats, before serious money comes flooding into the continent.