Clement James 
Ahead of the yearly Carnival billed for December, the Cross River State Tourism Bureau has hold a stakeholders’ meeting in Calabar to streamline arrangements on how to manage the period.
The Managing Director (MD), of Cross River State Tourism Bureau, Mr Ojoi Ekpenyong who hosted the stakeholders that included players in the hospitality industry as well as officials of the state Internal Revenue Service, among other relevant stakeholders, said the bureau was interested in harmonizing tax regime in the sector.
Ekpenyong, who disclosed that his first constituency was the private sector, said if the private sector does well, “the Bureau will do well.”
According to him, to keep up to date with developments in the hospitality industry, the Bureau has equally taken measures to improve regulations to accommodate rapid and continuous development.
“Tourism Bureau is a regulator that ensures that facilities in the sector are up to standard. We will go out of our way to make sure that people sleep in your facilities but your facilities must be up to date, you are not going to offer anything you like in terms of service delivery.
“This meeting is one of the greatest things that has happened to the tourism sector after so many years and the feedback I got here today is very exciting. I agree with the private sector that it is time to jumpstart our tourism initiative. Thank God I have the support of His Excellency the Governor, I expect that this is just the beginning, we will restore Cross River State.
Addressing the issue of multi-taxation in the sector, he said: “His Excellency is not aware of any tax known as ‘Television tax and the rest of the names’, so we are definitely going to have another stakeholders’ meeting that will involve everybody who is collecting tax.
“I will call the IRS chairman and we will sit together and agree on how to involve all stakeholders to harmonize, and I am sure all those taxes mentioned, when we bring it to the knowledge of His Excellency, will be no more,” he assured.
He added that to qualify for the ten million naira grant that the governor has allocated for the development of the state’s tourism industry, one must operate a hotel in Cross River according to the rules and guidelines of the tourism licensing regime, emphasizing that the money is not for the big players in the sector but for hotels that are struggling to survive.
Also speaking, the Chairman of Cross River State Hoteliers Association, Mr Charles Ogar commended the MD for securing funds to improve the sector within a short period of time and warned Hoteliers to jettison the dichotomy of regulators and practitioners because they can’t be regulators without practitioners.
On his part, one of the Stakeholders, the Chief Executive Officer of Murphy’s Apartments, Chief Ray Murphy commended the state government for its responsiveness in recognizing the need to give confidence to hotel operators in the state.
“As you can see today the mood in this stakeholders meeting is very good not because the amount is too high but it is to show that government is really committed to returning tourism to Cross River.
“As an old stakeholder, I would say that this is the first time since the civilian government came back in 1999. We had a boost like this during the military regime when we were about to host an international football tournament and money was released by the government to raise hotels up. So we commend the governor and we think that it is a step in the right direction.
The highlight of the event was the formation of a committee for the administration of grants which was by headed the Managing Director of Cross River State Tourism Bureau with three other Hoteliers as members of the committee.
