Breaking News: Gambia Tourism boss Abdoulie Hydara removed, as Ministry dissolves GT Board

By Assan Sallah

Reliable information reaching The Digest News has it that Abdoulie Hydara, the Director General of the Gambia Tourism Board (GTB) was on Thursday, 11^th June 2020, removed. Mr Hydara has been re-deployed to the Foreign Service under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with immediate effect.

Sources further hinted that the Ministry of Tourism and Culture has also dissolved the Gambia Tourism Board on Thursday and Mr. Abubacarr S. Camara, Director of Quality Control and Licensing Department at the GTB has been appointed as acting director general. He replaces Mr. Hydara.

Mr. Camara studied at the University of The Gambia from 2009-2014 where he bagged a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Honors) in Tourism and Hospitality Management and from 2015 to 2017, he did his Master’s Degree of Business Administration (MBA) at the Rome Business School in Italy.

Mr. Camara is known to be a hardworking and a no-nonsense man. He was quality control officer responsible for all quality programs of the Tourism Development Area (TDA). He used to conduct monthly inspection of all tourism facilities across the country, he issues license to tourist taxi drivers, tourist guards, hoteliers, vendors, etc.

He is the longest serving staff of the GTB, he has institutional memory and has demonstrated his skills ability in his job.

Brief background and transformation of the unit from NTO, GTA and to GTB

During the First Republic under the late Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara’s regime, The Gambia Tourism Board (GTB) was initially called the National Tourists Office (NTO). The unit NTO was operational until 2001 during Yahya Jammeh’s regime in the Second Republic when there was an Act of Parliament, which gave birth to the Gambia Tourism Authority (GTA). In 2009, while Fatou Mass Jobe was Tourism minister, it was changed to the Gambia Tourism Board (GTB) but the functions remained.

Mr. Habib Drammeh, the Gambia’s Ambassador to Spain, was the first Director General of the GTA. He served from 2001 to 2003. Earlier, he was the Director General at the former GPTC Company. He has also served shortly as Interior minister and later Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service under president Adama Barrow’s regime.

Mr Drammeh was replaced at the GTA by the late Kaliba Senghore in 2003. Mr. Senghore was the Director of Human Resources under Mr Drammeh.

Around 2007, Mr Senghore was replaced by Alieu Mboge, former GGC Director. Mboge served as DG at GTA until 2009 when he was also removed and replaced by Ms Binta Jobe. Ms. Jobe was also replaced by Momodou MBO Cham, who had a short live at the GTA. He served for only one month and was also replaced by Momodou MS Jobe, who was the director of Planning and Investment at the GTA.

After some time, Mr Jobe too was replaced and Mrs Fatou Beyai Raji was appointed briefly. Following, Mrs Beyai Raji’s removal, the GTA was revamped to become what is now called the Gambia Tourism Board (GTB).

To meet up the requirement of the GTB, authorities of the Tourism Ministry decided to advertise three (3) top positions of the unit and these were the Director General position, the Director of Marketing and the Director of Quality Control.

During this period, Abdoulie Hydara, the immediate-past DG, was working at the Gambia Ports Authority (GPA). He applied for the Director General position of GTB and was eventually appointed.

Mr. Adama Njie, a banker, formally of Bank PHB, also applied for the position of Director of Marketing and was also appointed.

Mr. Hydara became DG of GTB from that period under the former president’s regime until Thursday, 11^th June when he was removed and redeployed to the Foreign Service.