Africa-Press – Tanzania. PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan revealed on Sunday that the government has allocated 90.2bn/- as a stimulus package for the restoration of the country’s tourism sector, which has been mostly hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The allocation is part of the 1.3tri/- arrangement secured as a concessional loan from the Inter- national Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) and Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI).
“It’s true the Covid-19 pan- demic has slowed the tourism sector in the country that is one of the key sectors.
This is why the government has allocated 90.2bn/- to be distributed in revamping various areas in the tourism sector,” said President Samia, while speaking to the residents of Arusha at Sheikh Amri Abeid Kaluta Memorial Stadium.
She noted that the plan is to ensure the fund is effectively utilised by the government and private sector to restore the sector.
Besides the initiative, she dis- closed that Tanzania was expect- ing the kick off for the construc- tion of some Five Star Hotels.
The Head of State noted that the country has received various investors who have expressed in- terest in the hospitality industry.
“We have started embarking on the process of issuing permits for the erection of the facilities, which are expected to boost the tourism sector,” she observed.
According to her, the vaccina- tion has helped ease travel restric- tions in many countries which are now opening up and seeing their citizens starting to travel for leisure.
She said that Tanzania is one of the best destinations in the world, therefore tourists will need to experience it and once they come, the country needs to be ready in the aspect of state of-the- art facilities.
Equally, President Samia hinted that tourists have started flocking the country and such can be reflected through a large plane that recently landed in Kilimanjaro with over 200 visitors heading to Arusha and Zanzibar.
She further said that on Tuesday, the country expects to receive another batch of tourists from France.
By the end of last month, the Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism, Dr Damas Ndumba- ro, announced that investors from Bulgaria had planned to set up four Five-Star Hotels in Tanzania’s top tourist hotspots at 72 million US dollars (160bn/-).
He outlined the areas as prime National Parks of Serengeti, Man- yara, Tarangire and Ngorongoro. Earlier on Sunday, Dr Ndumbaro said the Ministry of Natu- ral Resources and Tourism will undertake five projects and 23 activities aimed at revamping and transforming the country’s tourism sector, so that it could withstand effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Ndumbaro said that the ministry’s projects and activities were outlined after the country received 90.2bn/- share from the 1.3tri/- relief fund from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Minister Ndumbaro stated this while meeting members of the press with plans on how the minis- try is going to spend the money to cushion the tourism industry from impacts of the pandemic.
The projects include empow- ering agencies under the ministry that have been badly affected by the pandemic. Under this project, the ministry will spend 71.9bn/- in institutions including Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA), Tanzania Wildlife Management Authority (TAWA), Tanzania Forest Services Agency (TFS) and National Museum and House of Culture (NMT).
The ministry will also spend 13.3bn/- for strengthening the market and promoting tourism and another 1.8bn/- for improving the tourism business environment by considering global health standards.
The minister further revealed that they will spend 1.4bn/- in implementing the fourth project that would focus on strengthening the capacity of the private sector by building their capacity to combat Covid-19.
The fifth project will give priority to strengthening digital sys- tems for tourism statistics.
“Under this area the activities to be implemented are aimed at improving information systems and statistics of tourists by conducting research on tourism value chain,” Dr Ndumbaro stated.
“The allocation of these funds will see a sum of 23bn/- being spent on renovation and reconstruction of 5,875 km roads offering access to the national parks and game reserves in Serengeti, Mkomazi, Tarangire, Nyerere, Kilimanjaro, Saadani and Gombe, Ngorongoro Conservation areas as well as in 10 different conserved forests over- seen by the Tanzania Forests Services (TFS),” he said.
