Chiefs urged to repackage festivals to boost tourism

Mr Mohammed Ahmed Baba-Jamal, Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, has appealed to traditional authorities to consider repackaging major festivals of the country and market them to boost tourism. He made the suggestion at a durbar of chiefs and people of Abonse in the Akuapem North District on Saturday to mark this year�s Abonse Akuapem Odwira Festival. Mr Baba-Jamal explained that the efforts of the Akuapem North District Assembly to place the Abonse salve care and market on the tourist map of Ghana could help develop the community into a tourist village to create jobs for the youth. He regretted that, currently, the strong bond that used to exist between communities and neighbours in the country had been broken by disunity, ethnocentrism, partisanship and provocative utterances on some F.M stations. Mr Baba-Jamal called on opinion leaders to preach peace and reconciliation wherever there was disunity. He appealed to the chiefs and people of Akuapem Traditional Area to make peace and unity permeate every facet of their lives to make the area a peaceful and stable place. Nana Otutu Kunor III, Chief of Adukrom, appealed to the Eastern Regional Coordinating Council to help rehabilitate the Aseseeso-Abonse-Agomeda road. He explained that there is a stream that runs across a portion of the Aseseeso-Abonse section of the road destroying it anytime it was rehabilitated. He therefore called for the appropriate engineering design that could provide a permanent solution to the problem. Nana Otutu Kunor appealed to the Eastern Regional Minister to help find a lasting solution to the boundary dispute between the people of Okere and Yilo Krobo. He said he had been informed that some boundary re-demarcation between the two neighbours was underway but the people of Okere had not been informed and therefore called for the inclusion of the two groups in the exercise. Mr Adjei Larbi, Assemblyman for Adukrom and the Tourism Co-ordinator of the Akuapem North District Assembly, said the assembly was planning to collaborate with the Ministry of Tourism to develop Abonse into a tourist village due to the large number of tourist attractions there. The Chief of Abonse, Nana Okoro Kotoko II, appealed for the completion of a six classroom block being constructed in the town but which had been abandoned. He also appealed for the rehabilitation of the road to the town and the improvement of water supply to the Abonse Community.