Joseph Kariuki
30 October 2008
Kampala — THE Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has withdrawn $25,000 (about sh50m) support for Uganda's trip to the World Travel Market in London from November 10-13.
This comes at a time when the country, through private sector partnerships, is set to aggressively market tourism potential at the World Travel Market for the first time.
Speaking during a cocktail party for the team in Kampala, Boniface Byamukama, the managing director of Lake Kitandara Tours and Travel, said: "We are celebrating a milestone in promoting tourism, but I have bad news. CAA has withdrawn its pledge of $25,000 and we, therefore, call upon the private sector to save the trip."
However, CAA has denied that they had an obligation to finance the trip at the said $25,000.
"We were not supposed to sponsor the stand but book a desk for participation, which we are still going to do," the CAA public affairs manager, Ignie Igundura, said.
When asked him how much money CAA was to pay for the stand, he referred us to the organisers.
This private sector has also complained of the Government's laxity in supporting Uganda's stand at the market.
"This project has been done without the Government's help. The Government had promised to put up a stand at the market at a cost of 22,426 pounds (sh72m) but do date, it has not. We had to go back to the private sector for more money," Byamukama stressed.
He said the private sector had stretched too much to fund Uganda's stand at the fair.
"We are crying for help because we have already committed ourselves. If we don't get the money, the exhibitors are going to split the bill, which may prompt some to withdraw," Byamukama warned.
Uganda's stand will have 15 exhibitors.
The budget of the Ugandan stand is $89,000 (sh178m). The Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) has already contributed $25,000 (sh50m), the private sector $36,000 (sh72m) and Auto $10,000 (sh20m).
The tourism minister, Serapio Rukundo, said Uganda had not put a substantial amount of money into tourism like Kenya, which injected $8m (sh16b).
"We need more than $5m per year if we are to make meaningful progress."
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