Ghana tourism authority: The plan or the personalities
While the world is being invited home for December in GH, the agency meant to sell Ghana to the world cannot get its CEO and Deputy CEO into the same room.
On Tuesday, October 20, Ghana launched December in GH 2026 at the Labadi Beach Hotel, under the theme “Ghana to the World.” More than 150 events were registered. The calendar was unveiled and the Minister urged everyone to become a brand ambassador. Two days later, the Deputy Chief Executive O officer (CEO) of the very agency meant to sell this season to the world was writing to the Minister to say he cannot get a meeting with his own boss.
In a petition dated October 22, Deputy CEO Gilbert Abeiku Aggrey, better known as Abeiku Santana, says he repeatedly sought appointments with CEO Maame Efua Houadjeto and was told she was unavailable. He says the difficulty has delayed approvals, stakeholder engagements and work on domestic tourism, special events and marketing. By October 24 the CEO had replied to the Board Chair. She was “surprised and disappointed,” insisted she keeps an open-door policy, and proposed new consultation measures.
Read that again. An open-door policy that now needs new consultation rules to prove it exists is not a policy. It is a press statement. If the door was open, why does the agency need new rules to walk through it? If it wasn’t, the CEO should say so.
The deputy is not off the hook
A broadcaster who has spent a career reading the news cycle knows what a petition to the Minister, copied to the Ministry’s Chief Director, the Board Chair and the Chief Executive Officer, becomes within days. It becomes a headline. Corridor politics put on the public record, in the busiest weeks of the tourism year.
If approvals critical to December really are stalling, name them. Ghanaians deserve to know whether the delay is in the calendar or in the corridors. Should that be the case, why is the public hearing about it five weeks before the season opens and not in September?
What has become of ”the year of return”
Credit where it is due. This government has put things on the table. President Mahama has launched the Black Star Experience in 2025. There is a 2026 to 2029 sector plan with an $8.3 billion revenue target, a promised Homeland Return Bill for the diaspora, a digital “Experience Ghana” campaign, and Cape Coast and Elmina castles extending their opening hours. December 2025 arrivals rose 11.35 per cent.
The Ghana Tourism Authority’s own 2025 report shows international arrivals up just 1.4 per cent, while tourism receipts fell from US$4.83 billion to US$4.34 billion. More footfall and less money are a festival economy, not yet a tourism economy.
A commentary on the Mid-Year Budget Review complained that tourism was left out. The Minister herself has warned about the condition of Ghana’s forts and castles and called for an Attorney-General probe into alleged procurement breaches and audit discrepancies of GH¢33 million in the sector.
Plans, launches and slogans are the easy part. What matters is whether an institution can deliver them, and an institution whose two senior officers need a petition to schedule a conversation is not ready for the hard part.
Both officials were appointed within weeks of each other in early 2025. One is an event planner, journalist and entrepreneur who contested Mfantsiman for the NDC in 2024 and served as the party’s deputy women’s organiser. The other is a celebrated broadcaster and tour operator. Both have genuine sector experience, and nobody disputes that.
The issue is not experience. It is judgement, discipline and the ability to run a national institution rather than a personal brand. Ghana keeps staffing national offices with the loyal and the famous, then acts surprised when an agency behaves like a campaign team or a talk show. National office is not a prize for proximity or popularity. It is a duty, and it comes with the obligation to keep the main thing the main thing.
The Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA) should publish who approves what, and by when, for every December flagship event. The President, who has asked Ghanaians to be ambassadors for the country, should expect the heads of the tourism agency to be ambassadors for each other. Christmas is few weeks away and Ghanaians deserve one that sells our culture to the world.
Tourists do not read petitions. They read first impressions. Ghana is telling the world “Akwaaba.” Somebody in Ridge should please start by saying it to each other.
By Hannah Agyemang
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