Cuthbert Baguma will be succeeded at the helm of the Uganda Tourism Board (UTB) by Mr. Stephen Asiimwe, who was appointed as CEO of Tourism Uganda last week and introduced by the Minister for Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities Maria Mutagamba.
Joining UTB from the private sector, Asiimwe was best known over the years in his capacity as CEO and Editor in Chief of the East African Business Week, a weekly business newspaper covering the entire East African Community.
His experience in the media business promises a closer cooperation with the local, regional, and international media in the future, including a stronger engagement with the social media scene which under the former regime at UTB was hardly tapped into, foregoing many opportunities to promote Uganda as The Pearl of Africa.
Asiimwe will be deputized by one John Ssempebwa.
Uganda’s Tourism Board has been underfunded for years, barely scratching by meeting recurrent expenses, as the Ministry of Finance continues to treat the tourism industry more like an accidental sector than a leading performer for the national economy, in spite of annual budget allocations which kept the ministry, and the tourism board, near poverty levels. Here too it is hoped that the new leadership will be more effectively lobbying parliament and the finance ministry officials in charge of preparing the resource distribution ahead of the national budget, which will be read next month, to at last have Uganda match her neighbors in tourism marketing spending.
