The 25th United Nations World Tourism Organisation [UNWTO] General Assembly ended yesterday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Just like the drama of the opening days marred by manipulations supported by a twisted legal team of a power drunk secretary general.
After a questionable attempt by Zurab Pololikashvili , UNWTO Secretary-General to be appointed for a third term without an election, he lost due to intervention by the German delegation.
As the General Assembly was coming to an end on October 19th, 2023, the Secretary-General pulled Plan B out of his toy box of manipulations that he is now able to run for a questionable third term.
Sources revealed that with the help of Chile, the General Assembly in Uzbekistan voted with a 73 percent margin in favour of allowing the Secretary-General to run for a third term.
This last-minute and not well-communicated resolution completely overlooked the fact that an intended two-term limit was established years ago but due to a technicality, it was never ratified.
In the meantime, both UNWTO and the General Assembly host Uzbekistan refused to talk to the attending media, even to fully hosted journalists.
At the end though, the UNWTO press statement was released, noting that the following issues were discussed on day 2 and the final day of the 25th General Assembly:
The Regional Office for the Middle East, opened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in 2021, is an established hub for tourism education and tourism for rural development and the UNWTO has opened the Riyadh School for Hospitality and Tourism, launched the first Education Toolkit for high schools, and launched the Best Tourism Villages initiative and UNWTO signed an agreement with the Government of Brazil to establish a Regional Office in Rio de Janeiro, to be focused on investments.
Others are, a planned Regional Office for Africa in Marrakesh, Morocco, that will focus on the priorities of innovation and investments in tourism; whilst Uzbekistan, presented its proposal to establish a Thematic Office for Tourism on the Silk Road that was approved by the 119th session of the UNWTO Executive Council.
Meanwhile, African Travel Times investigations also revealed that Sub-Saharan Africa apart from South Africa have been a toy in the hands of the egregiously corrupt and Mafioso style secretary general in encouraging most tourism ministers in extorting their governments in the name of the United Nations.
Ministers from Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia and even Zimbabwe have recruited, co-opted, or blackmailed and pushed beyond their limits in seeking money from their nations’ treasury in the name of tourism. Whereas like other UN agencies, they fund, facilitate and support member nations with necessary information on how to grow tourism, except the UNWTO.
It must also be noted though that all United Nations agencies have a precedent of a limited two terms which the current UNWTO secretary general is blatantly violating.
Saudi Arabia will host the 26th General Assembly Meeting in 2025.