Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin, the Minister of Presidential Affairs - Credit: Lou Nelson/Eye Radio - Sept. 26, 2023

The Minister of Presidential Affairs has urged investors to take advantage of the untapped wildlife and tourism sectors, which he described as one of the biggest wildlife populations on earth.

Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin called on friends and partners of South Sudan to invest in the country’s tourism sector.

A survey shows that South Sudan is home to the world’s second-largest land mammals migration, such as elephant, giraffe, lion, and hippopotamus.

Dr Marial said South Sudan is a well-placed destination for tourism but needs investors to improve the sector.

He said the country’s tourism industry has unlimited potential to attract both tourists and investors and called on them to channel their money into the tourism sector. 

“We have the biggest wildlife on earth, when you get our real lion, it is not a lion that knows a car it is a real one. When you see a buffalo it is a real one, the real wild one, when you see an elephant, when you see a giraffe, we are number one. But tourism what do we have? Dr Marial asked.

“I’m saying this to our friends and partners who are here please invest in tourism, help this country to move in that direction this is very important. In infrastructure alone this country since the interim period we have 14,000 km of roads to be built,” he said.

“We need assistance, projects cannot be built by hand from a country you have to build them through loans.”

“Allow us to have loans, so that we build these roads so that our citizens can stay in their villages, produce for themselves and market their products on good tarmac roads.”

This year’s World Tourism Day is being observed under the theme “Tourism and green investment” highlights the need for more and better-targeted investments for the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN roadmap for a better world by 2030.