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Bashir said the process will be spearheaded by the State Department of Heritage in partnership with the county government of Tana River.
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She said that the government will support the county administration in mobilising resources to renovate some of the heritage centres.
Image: HANDOUT
Heritage Principal Secretary Ummi Bashir has said that heritage sites in Tana River county will be mapped and gazetted.
Bashir said the process will be spearheaded by the State Department of Heritage in partnership with the county government of Tana River.
She noted that the move is among the measures the government has in place to expand tourism in the coastal region.
"This is a step into positioning our country properly as a global heritage center and a home of rich history dating centuries," she said on Saturday in Ngao during the launch of the county's first museum.
The Principal Secretary noted that government will support the county administration in mobilising resources to renovate some of the heritage centres and also make them official to attract tourists and archaeologists across the world.
According to Bashir, Tana River county hosts some of the richest history in the country that requires the attention of tourists from Asia and Europe.
"The Germans were here and so were the British, Arabs and Portuguese. This is a clear chance for other countries to trace and learn about their history," she said.
"We have missionaries whose graves are monuments in this county, they form part of an ancestry that needs to be honored back at home."
Among the sites the government will pay attention to include the ancient tunnel of the British under Lord Garrison Administration situated in Garsen, the office of the colonial district commissioner situated in Kipini, the ancient mosque of the Sultan of Muscat and the Grave of Fumo Liyongo.
Bashir also noted that the government will support locals in marketing some of the ancient cultural medicines and beauty products that most people trace abroad.
"There is a type of clay here that I'm informed delays ageing; people around the world usually trace it in other countries and they pay expensively for it yet here in Tana River it is just treated as normal clay. We shall explore a market for it," she said.
Image: HANDOUT
Tana River Governor Dhadho Godhana reiterated that the county has a rich history that will redefine what has been documented in the books of history when properly interrogated.
According to the Governor, it is in Tana River county that the first course for a free Kenya was charted, after the Hola massacre.
"It was at the Hola prison that prisoners of war went on hunger strike and were clobbered to death leading to the major conversation at the first Lancaster Conference that would chart us to where we are today, but that part of history has been shelved and needs to be made clear," he said.
Godhana noted that the county has the potential to be one of the continent's tourism hubs if the government and other partners spearhead a robust exercise of upgrading the sites and bringing the rich history to life.
Residents in the area termed the establishment of the first museum a redefining moment to their heritage, urging investors and tourists to pay a visit and learn about the rich history of the people.
The 120-year-old facility launched in Ngao village represents a story of how locals fought the colonialists to establish Christianity in the area.
Among the artefacts that have been featured in the museum include canoes aged more than 100 years, ancient fishing traps, pots and plates of the ancient people.
The development is in collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya, supported by a €19,500 grant from a Greek heritage NGO.
Others who graced the launch of the museum include Tana River Senator Danson Danson Mungatana, MPs Ali Wario ( Garsen), Said Hiribae (Galole), PSs Idris Dokota (Cabinet Affairs), Harsama Kello (ASALs), the deputy government spokesperson Mwanaisha Chidzuga and area MCAs.