Yesterday, The Statesman took an in-depth look at Cape Coast Castle in the Central Region, and the complicated interplay between a people disinterested in its historic significance to their present day poverty, and an ever-increasing influx of visitors, keen to engage with the shadows of the slave trade past.

Twenty minutes further West at Elmina, and the contrast is even more acute. Compared to the regional capital of Cape Coast, Elmina is a very small town, dominated by fishing, with little else in the way of economic opportunities.

Elmina Castle, the country's most popular tourist destination which towers above the town, adds little to the local community.

"The people at Elmina have every reason to feel resentful of tourists,” says Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, the Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Relations.

“There they are in their own little town, and then these people come from Accra in cars and buses, drive them off the streets, go to the Castle, have a look at the Castle, then they get back into their cars and buses, and drive them off the streets again as they drive back to Accra.

“They don"t spend any money in Elmina, except the entrance fee at the Castle. They don’t interact at all - so what is the benefit? Tourism is just a hassle – being driven off the streets by people who are not coming to do a damn thing for us. So they start throwing stones at the tourists.”

Even for those who want to stay in the town, there is little in the way of accommodation, with only the Elmina Golden Beach Hotel and the Coconut Grove Hotel to chose from –both of them often fully booked weeks in advance.

The Elmina Heritage Project, a joint Dutch-Ghanaian venture, aims to improve the tourist, social and economic conditions of Elmina. Already the Dutch, with funding from the European Union, have come and restored some of the houses in the town and the central square. Other priority areas for development under the Elmina 2015 plan, produced in 2004 by the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem District Assembly, are tourism and local economic development; fishing and the fishing harbour; waste management and drainage; education and health. Based on these priority areas working groups were established bringing together a wide variety of people from fishermen to hotel managers. These working groups developed the 2015 strategy as well as a project portfolio containing over 80 concrete project proposals for Elmina town.

Local people will be less resentful towards tourism if growth in that industry leads to economic growth and development for the community as a whole. Meanwhile, increased interaction between those living around the Castle and those who come to visit will help break down barriers and increase understanding.

The Joseph Project, Government’s outreach programme to Africans living in the Diaspora, to come back to Ghana and explore their historical roots, is trying to combat this lack of interaction.

As part of the project, visitors will follow a pilgrimage roots tour through many of the former slave castles, forts and trading places. Along this entire trail, the plan is to build a series of eco lodges at each major site. Visitors will have the opportunity to stay in the local communities, and cultural groups will form an important part of their experience – with musical performances and lessons and story telling on offer.

Education is also key to breaking the uneasiness, the taboo, which still surrounds the subject of slavery, particularly for those people living in former slave towns such as Elmina and Cape Coast, and around the slave ports of Accra – fishing people in Jamestown, Usher Fort.

“There are people still identified as having come there as slaves, and they don’t appreciate being reminded of it because there is still an element of looking down upon slave descendents. But these are all parts of the inheritance that we have from that period.

“We also have an inheritance in the way that we dislike ethnic groups – this ethnic group will dislike that ethnic group. Why is it? You will go into it and it turns out it’s because they were constantly raided, to capture people who were to be sold off as slaves. The very mention of their name sends fear. That fear, that hatred; people don’t know why they are doing it, but they’re still doing it now.

“So for me, these are all things that we need to bring out, to exorcise, so that we can get on with coming to terms with it, and then get on with moving into the future.”

The legacy of Ghana’s slave past will take many more years to make peace with, according to Mr Obetsebi Lamptey.

“You are not going to change attitudes which have been formed over hundreds of years overnight, but at least you can start the process. If you don’t start the process, then you have all these underlying tensions in society which are not dealt with, which actually keep on keeping the society from really melding.

“This is what I learnt from dealing with the Joseph Project. I kept talking about the need for reconciliation between the people on the continent and the people in the Diaspora, only to ultimately realise that we need to do some reconciliation amongst the people on the continent, too.”

See also Living in the shadow of evil: Why the people of Cape Coast resent their Castle.