The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | The Chief Executive Officer of Uganda Tourism Board, Stephen Asiimwe is engaging all key players in the tourism sector on possible ways to combat tourism crime as the country eyes more earnings from the sector.
“We need to be together in this discussion to deal with the rising criminal cases,” Asiimwe said.
He was speaking at a meeting dubbed ‘stakeholders engagement on prevention and management of crime in the tourism sector’ that the Board organised on December 17 at Protea Hotel in Kampala.
The meeting was attended by approx.100 participants directly linked to the tourism sector in Uganda.
Asiimwe said that they plan to engage the members of parliament, hoteliers, tour operators, the media, the army council, institutions of higher learning and more to see to it that the rising numbers of crime in the sector are fought and investors do not lose their money.
“Tourism is everybody’s business,” he said. “We need to do more on coordination and creating liaison departments in ministries and agencies of government.”
In a presentation Gloria Tumwesigye, the CEO of the Association of Uganda Tourism Operators said that they had received on average two cases per month in 2018.
For instance, in November 2018, over 23 people booked tickets to fly outside Uganda but later realised they (tickets) were all fake when they got to the airport.
There was a similar case of a Jinja-based travel agent who booked but did not issue tickets to a US family worth $6000.
She added that some companies were receiving funds erroneously from clients or agents…the recent case she quoted is one for a Bunyonyi-based company which received $30,000 instead of $3,000 but failed to reimburse the client.
She however said that majority of the cases recorded involve persons and businesses that are outside the associations thus creating a situation that in the absence or laxity of government legal intervention they go unpunished.
Tumwesigye said that all cases reported to them involving non-members have been channeled to UTB.
UTB’s Asiimwe challenged legislators to make amendments to sector laws by putting in place harsh punishments to the-would be culprits as one way of fighting crime.
Frank Mwesigwa, the commandant of Tourism Police told reporters on the sidelines of the meeting that his force is always ready to respond to any sector crime.
He said that his department has 936 trained personnel and that he is engaging authorities to increase the number to 5,000 to be able to effectively deal with the growing crime numbers.
Tourism contributes 10% to Uganda’s GDP, making it one of the top foreign exchange earners for Uganda, according to UTB officials.
This contribution translates into more than Shs5.1 trillion ($1.4 billion) annually, and is projected to jump to about Shs10trillion ($2.7 billion) by 2020.
