Mr. Prince Yaw Essah, the Fund Administrator at Tourism Development Fund (TDF), has disclosed that the fund is targeting GHc20.9 million in revenues by the end of the year, 2022.
According to the Fund Administrator, since the Fund’s establishment in 2012 to support the tourism industry in Ghana, the Fund has grown to an appreciable level and is currently doing very well, despite the myriad of challenges.
“In 2021, we budgeted for GH¢15.1 million and we did GH¢15.18 million. In 2022, we budgeted for GHc16.95 million and as of the end of August, we have been able to achieve GHc14.9 million. Indicating that we have about 2 million to go for the year 2022.
“Looking at our average collection, it hovers around GH¢1.7 million. So, all things being equal, the remaining four months left we are looking at the range of a little over GH¢6 million. So, if we do GHc6 million, that is taking an average of 1.5 million per month for the remaining four months we should be able to do GHc20.9 million for 2022.”
Mr Prince Yaw Essah
Data from the TDF Secretariat of the Ghana Tourism Authority show that payment of the levy accumulated an amount of GH¢11 million in 2017, GH¢16 million in 2018, and GH¢18 million in 2019, but experienced a major dip to GH¢10.5 million in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Mr. Prince Yaw Essah stated that on average, there are a little over 4000 establishments contributing to the Fund, but there are quite a number of them operating but have not availed themselves for licensing and certification, thus if they come on board, they would be able to exceed the target.
Mr. Essah, however, asserted that for the fund to achieve this target, it is important to increase its fleets of vehicles for monitoring and evaluation and intensify monitoring and evaluation across the country.
Key Challenges of the Fund
The Fund Administrator disclosed that the key challenges of the Fund include the lack of adequate logistics, including vehicles for operation, lack of compliance, and unclassified payments.
“The tourism establishment always wants us to go after them before they comply and going after them is very expensive. With monitoring, we need to get strong vehicles to be able to monitor. Cost of fuel, and maintenance, among others, also make it difficult to go to every part of the country to do monitoring to make sure they pay.”
Mr Prince Yaw Essah
The Fund Administrator also indicated that tourism establishments have failed to use their unique numbers, and names of establishments as depositors’ names, when they make payments into the fund, and this usually appeared as unclassified payment, making it difficult to trace to any particular establishment. Meanwhile, the institutions obliged to pay this levy include hotels, guest houses, serviced apartments, hostels, lodges, restaurants, traditional catering establishments (chop bars), drinking bars, travel, and tour agencies, and car rentals, among others.
Mr. Essah expressed appreciation to owners of tourism establishments, who have been paying into the fund, and assured them that the revenue would be used in a way that would support the industry so that employment and wealth would be created for Ghanaians for our benefit. However, he appealed to tourism establishments operating without licenses and certificates to do so to contribute to the fund at the end of every month to help develop the industry.
The one percent monthly tourism levy, guaranteed under Legislative Instruments (LI) 2238 and 2239 and mandated by the Tourism Act, 2011, Act 817, is one percent of the cost payable by patrons of tourism entities and is expected to be the key source of finance for the TDF and to add to the seed money that government is expected to provide for the Fund.
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