Minister Kamuntu criticizes government for low tourism budget

Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, the Minister of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities has criticized government for the continued low budgetary allocations to the tourism and conservation industry.

Speaking on Thursday evening at the launch of the 2016 annual conservation status report released by the Greater Virunga Trans-boundary Collaboration, the minister admitted that government could do more to boost conservation efforts to attract more tourists.

"Conservation and tourism is not a top priority to many. If you doubt my statements, simply look at the (national) budgets. You must match your words with deeds," he said

"I can criticize my own country. If you look at our budget for conservation and tourism, it is 0.02 percent. How can a priority be that percentage of the budget?"

The Greater Virunga Trans-boundary Collaboration is an effort to fight poaching in the wildlife area that covers Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The initiative is supported by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the launch of the report was done at the residence of the Henk Jan Bakker, the Dutch ambassador to Uganda.

"People will sing conservation, they will sing tourism. They will talk about how tourism is growing…Every time I match the budgetary provision, be it international assistance or national budgets, the amount of funds allocated to conservation and tourism is very small by any standards."

Out of the sh29 trillion budget passed in the 2017/18 financial year, government only allocated sh98.39 billion to tourism. Government has instead chosen to heavily focus on areas such as road infrastructure.