 |
 |
Speech by Mr. Allan W. Chenane, Chief Executive Officer, Catering And Tourism Development Levy Trustees at the launch of the ISO 9001:2000 Certification and the Launch of CTDLT Strategic Plan 2009-2014 at KICC on 10th June 2009.
Members of my Board present here today,
Our very distinguished Stakeholders,
All protocol observed,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Before I proceed further, allow me once again to reiterate my appreciation to all of you who attended the last forum in Mombasa, A Chinese teacher once said “When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them.” It is with this in mind that we as CTDLT appreciate the fact that without you, our stakeholders, our vision will remain a mirage, thus we salute you. It is once again a great honour for me to address this exceptional forum, whose key objective is to improve service delivery with close reference to the new constitution and consequently the New Tourism Act 2011. This is in line with the stated Government of Kenya policy of improving public sector service delivery through enhanced stakeholder participation. During our last meeting, we managed to tackle a number of issues key among them benefits of both the Levy Fund and industry of standards, which are our core mandates. Most pertinent is the contribution you made during our plenary session which, I would like to reassure you that we did take with all the seriousness it deserves. Among the issues raised was what CTDLT is doing to ensure that every registered establishment remits their levy and if the organization could publish list of the payers list. We would like to assure you that the New Tourism Act 2010 which is awaiting the presidential assert will take care of almost all your concerns. Also raised was the inclusion of Tours and Travel agents in the 2% remittance of levy since they benefit largely from training; I want to assure you that CTDLT has tried in the past to include the Tour operators as well as other tourist operatiors and the same is ongoing with the hope that it will succeed especially once the New Tourism bill 2010 is implemented. The Kenya Tourism Board will also be mandated to undertake domestic marketing through Local Tourism Boards as stipulated in the New Tourism bill and this will address the small hotels and bridge the gaps that exist during low sessions. In the same vein the regulation of industry players by a regulatory body will add extra value and help address most of the previous misgivings. In addition to that, we have developed modules to enable those serving int he industry advance thier knowledge so as to compete effectively in the Job market these, will available on the CTDLT website. Since the Trustees recognize that its imperative to achieve vision 2030 and tourism being among the main pillars that is expected to enable the country earn some foreign exchange, this forum encourages members to play their role to help the country achieve the set goals. In this regard, I wish to challenge all the coastal region investors especially those in Malindi to be at the fore front in declaring all the visitors that they host on home stays by paying levy correctly. As I conclude, I would like to thank all of you once again, for having got the opportunity to attend to this forum, and wish our Muslims brother and sisters a good Ramadhan. THANK YOU.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
