Security personnel closed down a popular hotel

18/04/08

Story: Musah Yahaya Jafaru
SECURITY personnel on Wednesday closed down the Greenland Hotel at Agona Swedru in the Central Region as a result of the inability of the management of the hotel to repay the remaining GH¢1.1 million which is part of a loan it took from the Ghana Commercial Bank (GCB).
Sources close to the hotel indicated that the GH¢1.1 million was interest which accrued on an initial loan of about GH¢400,000
The security personnel, comprising four armed policemen and five bodyguards, in the company of some GCB officers, ordered the staff out of the hotel and locked up the facility.
A few people who were lodging in the hotel were not spared, as they had to relocate to other hotels in the area.
Only the security men were left behind to guard the hotel, under the supervision of the four police officers and five bodyguards.
When the Daily Graphic visited the hotel yesterday, its gates were still locked, with red bands around them.
Security men and some bodyguards were at the gate, apparently to resist any re-entry.
The security men, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were at the hotel about 10:30 a.m. when the GCB officials, in the company of the police, arrived.
They said some bailiffs showed them a court order for the closure of the hotel.
“The bailiffs presented the court order to close down the hotel so I could not prevent them,” one of the security men said.
He said the police officers ordered all the staff to move outside the hotel, after which they locked the gates.
“As I talk to you now, nobody is in the hotel. Operation is not going on,” he said.
The security man recalled that some time last year the GCB sued the management of the hotel for default.
A source close to the hotel indicated that it had received reservations from prominent people, including the visiting Spiritual Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad Khalifatul Masih V, who is on a six-day visit to Ghana.
He said the closure would result in huge losses to the management, since all the foodstuffs and other ingredients in stock which had been locked up by the security men who closed down the hotel were likely to go bad.