{"id":105718,"date":"2015-04-07T06:00:25","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=105718"},"modified":"2015-04-07T06:02:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-07T06:02:42","slug":"ghanas-tourism-prospects-sakumono-beach-in-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=105718","title":{"rendered":"Ghana’s Tourism prospects: Sakumono beach in perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Sunday and hundreds of revelers have thronged the Titanic beach at Sakumono in Accra to have fun.<\/p>\n

There isn\u2019t enough space for all the vehicles so some have been parked on the pavement.<\/p>\n

Under one of the many sheds is Yamoah James who has travelled all the way from Agona Bobikuma in the Central Region. Yamoah tells me he comes here every time to have fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the place\u2026we have fun here. We are happy here\u201d, he says.<\/p>\n

But the Titanic beach isn\u2019t your usual resort with all the facilities needed for relaxation. The makeshift structures look uncoordinated. About 30 operators lay claim to different sections of the beach in a seemingly uncoordinated manner. One of the sellers here (who will not tell me her name) says there is order in the allocations. She tells me how they ended up here.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20150405-WA0013\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were selling at the old place called titanic. I remember some years ago on 1st July, they sacked us. So we couldn\u2019t sell on that holiday. A week later, we went to TMA (Tema Municipal Assembly) and pleaded for another place. So Kempes brought us here. He told us to weed the place and share it among ourselves\u201d.<\/p>\n

There were about 96 individual sellers who were evicted from their former location because of security reasons.
\nThe man who led the 96 sellers to the former Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive; Kempes Ofosu Ware to plead for space is Kofi Prah. What he tells me is no different from what the other seller said.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20150405-WA0012\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe security council of Tema deemed our previous venue as security risk so we should stop selling. We came together to form an association and we begged to be given this place\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, other sellers like Isabella, who is a former nurse acquired a spot here through a local Chief from Nungua.<\/p>\n

According to her, she paid no money to the chiefs and reveals she does not even pay any rent.<\/p>\n

Seated in front of her stall with a few customers, she says \u201cthey just asked me what I was going to do there. I said I was going to sell food and drinks. They said ok. But told me the land wasn\u2019t for sale and asked me am I ready to give it out when they are ready to take it back? I said yes\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20150405-WA0011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite the thousands of people who come here each weekend, there are no toilet facilities, no changing rooms, no security and other basic recreational facilities. This is a concern for Isabella who\u2019s customers and thousands of others use makeshift wooden structures as urinal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is light and water, you can cook and preserve your food well. But there is not light so you just put the food in the fridge and put blocks beside it. At the end of the day you sell it to people, this is very bad\u201d she says with a very worried face.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20150405-WA0009\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The general problem of sanitation that faces almost the country\u2019s entire entire coastline is what drove a middle-aged Ghanaian, Kafu Kofi Tsikata to embark on a project, called Nshorna, to clean the nation\u2019s beaches.<\/p>\n

Tsikata toured all of Ghana\u2019s coastal fronts but has special concerns about the rather uncoordinated developments at the Sakumono beach front, fearing the haphazard structural developments may cause a fire outbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a major hazard waiting to happen. Can you imagine a fire on titanic beach one night when the whole place is packed? The stampede and everything\u2026it is just something waiting to happen. It will happen sooner than later if we don\u2019t do anything about it. The fire will happen. That\u2019s what has been happening in Ghana\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20150405-WA0005\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But the Municipal Chief Executive of Tema, Isaac Odampten seems to have an eye on the situation. He tells me the assembly is putting in measures to make sure what seems to be a challenge at the Titanic beach currently does not escalate.<\/p>\n

He reveals the sellers do not have a permanent permit to operate, saying, \u201cwhat we have done is to prevent additional structures from coming to the place\u201d, adding, \u201cwe will have to clear the place because we don\u2019t want slums to just spring up anywhere. Not at the beach front. We will get there but the assurance I\u2019m giving you is that we will deal with the situation with a well planned beach front entertainment toursism attraction center\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tourism which was until recently the third largest foreign exchange earner for Ghana is still so much potential. It is therefore not surprising that the government has earmarked the sector as a major potential source of foreign exchange for Ghana.<\/p>\n

The World Economic Forum has estimated that the sector will contribute about 5.4% to GDP from 2013 to 2022. But these predictions stand threatened if tourist sites, like our beach fronts are neglected. Kofi Tsikata is therefore calling for a special policy plan to develop not just the titanic beach at Sakumono, but all of Ghana\u2019s coastal fronts.
\nBut will this ever be realized?<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

By: Eugenia Tenkorang\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Sunday and hundreds of revelers have thronged the Titanic beach at Sakumono in Accra to have fun. There isn\u2019t enough space for all the vehicles so some have been parked on the pavement. Under one of the many sheds is Yamoah James who has travelled all the way from Agona Bobikuma in the Central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":105719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,17],"class_list":["post-105718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-wassa-akropong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/105719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}