The following is part two of the news story regarding Investors Forum in Musoma:

Mara residents told to invest at home
by PATI MAGUBIRA in Musoma

MARA residents have been urged to invest in their region which offers quite a number of tourist attractions including most of the world famous Serengeti National Park.

Speaking at the Mara Investors Forum which ended here yesterday, the Serengeti District Council Chairman, Mr John Chacha Ng’oina, said investments by residents could make a big impact in the region’s economic vibrancy.

Mr Ng’oina said the region had some of the best scholars in the country but they had not ploughed back home the benefits of their superior knowledge and earnings. Opportunities included farming, livestock keeping, fishing and the tourism industry.

The Regional Commissioner and Forum Chairman, Mr Isidory Shirima, chipped in, challenging government leaders to have demonstration farms.

The owner of Peninsula Hotel in Musoma town, the regional headquarters, Dr Gideon Mazara, said Mara was strategically located as a regional centre and could easily become the hub for East African business ventures and trade.

"I have since 1994 been using the Serengeti National Park (SENAPA) and the strategic location of the region to sell my hotel," he said.

Dr Mazara observed that tourists to Serengeti via Arusha paid unnecessarily for about 600 extra kilometres driving in from neighbouring Kenya. They should be told, he said, that Mara was the shortest route to the world famous park and the Ngorongoro Crater, a sunken caldera 2000 feet below teeming with wildlife.