Regional News of Thursday, 29 July 2004

Source: GNA

Receptive Centre to be built at Gwollu

Gwollu (U/W), July 29, GNA - The Ministry of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City has signed a contract to build a receptive centre at Gwollu, a village in the Upper West Region, to help accommodate tourists who visit the place.

Ms Victoria Manford, Chief Executive of the Ghana Tourist Development Company said this, when she led a team of tourists on a visit to the Gwollu Defence Wall and paid a courtesy call on the Gwollu Kuoro Kuri-Buktie Limann IV.

She also promised a 10-room lodge for the people in Tumu, a town near Gwollu saying "such facilities would sustain tourism in this area and generate income for the people."

Ms Manford said it was important for foreign tourists as well as Ghanaians to be interested in visiting such sites to enable them know the true history behind the slave trade.

The Gwollu Kuoro said Emancipation Day reminded the people of the terrible crime that was committed on innocent people and humanity and stressed that "it should never happen again".

He urged the people of Gwollu to embrace Africans in the Diaspora as brothers and sisters whenever they visit the area, and urged those in the Diaspora to make it an annual event to visit the Gwollu Defence Wall.

The tourists also visited the Paga slave centre, where they where taken through various activities that went on at the slave camp. African-Americans, who formed a vast majority of the touring group, suggested that, school children in the area be taught about the slave trade.

Residents of Paga called on the government to institute an Emancipation Trust Fund to be used in the development of the slave camp. The tourists also visited the Paga Crocodile Pond and the Sirigu Receptive Centre.