The Indaba 2017 inaugural saw several light moments because of Zuma’s humour. He took digs at disaffected members of the party who have lost positions after a mid-March cabinet reshuffle
“Africa has for long been called the cradle of mankind and the world. It is time for the world to visit its cradle again,” said South Africa (SA)’s President Jacob Zuma while inaugurating this year’s edition of Africa’s largest tourism show Indaba which he called “an opportunity for bringing Africa to the world and the world to Africa.”
He was speaking at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre Complex at Durban which is being pounded some really heavy rains since the weekend. “Tourism is the new currency that can both unite and ignite the economy and the nation,” he said and calling it “both profitable and sustainable at a time when the global economy is not doing too well.” According to him tourism “is helping change SA for the better and helping correct the legacy of our apartheid past be getting more and more black entrepreneurs to enter this sector. Our goal is to increase the total interests held by blacks in the tourism economy to 30% over the next five years.”
Pointing out the 13% growth in the number of international visitors to SA over the last five years, he underlined how 8% of all international tourism traffic was now coming to the African continent. “Just because that is 58 million visitors is no reason to sit on our laurels yet since the UN World Tourism figures say that the international tourism traffic is nearly a billion a year.”
He also underlined efforts of improving connectivity with the world and the continent. “We want to make it so attractive to travel and do business in the continent and our country that people who come here must find it so special that they never want to go back.”
He shared how talks were on to introduce a high speed train connecting all the national capitals of the African continent. “We want Africans to explore their own countries and the continent too.”
The Indaba 2017 (which also saw the presence of other dignitaries like the SA premiere Willies Mchunu, the tourism minister Tokozile Xasa and the Durban mayor Durban mayor Zandile Gumede) inaugural saw several light moments because of Zuma’s humour. He took digs at disaffected members of the party who have lost positions after a mid-March cabinet reshuffle. While welcoming all the delegates he took a long pause to emphasise his welcome to “former ministers.” This led to much titters from the front rows and the energetic guffaws at the back.
He also brought the house down with his joke in the end. “Uganda is one of the most beautiful evergreen countries. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni asked me if I knew why this is so? He said: ‘Because Uganda was the last country God created and he was left with a lot of left over beautiful material which he put in here.’ I asked him if he knew were God went to live after his work was done and told him he had come to Cape Town and sent Jesus to live in Durban,” to much applause.
He announced soon afterwards how Durban will be home to Indaba for the next five years.
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