Majority Leader Chastises Operators In Hospitality Industry – Rejoinder

The Canadian Parliamentary Centre from 20th to 23rd November, 2009 organized a Healthy Lifestyle Conferencing Retreat at the Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm, Sogakofe.

Their business theme was “Review Workshop for Ghanaian Parliamentarians on the Government of Ghana Budget and Economic Policy Statement for the 2010 fiscal year”.

In all 125 delegates including Parliamentarians, Consultants and Support staff attended and used the Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm’s 300-seater Conference Venue, 60-bed Accommodation and meals for all Parliamentarians and the participants had various health/medical services including Medical Laboratory Examinations, ECG Heart Diagnosis, Sleep Disorder Diagnosis, Stress Analysis Investigation, Colon Detoxification Cleansing, Destressing Massages, Anti-aging Facial Treatment, Detox Infra Red Sauna, Complementary de-stressing Yatch Cruises on the Volta River and Dental scaling and polishing (dental cleaning) at no extra cost against what hotels offer for traditional conferences.

A second facility – a nearby hotel- was used for accommodation of drivers, security and other supporting personnel.

In certain comments allegedly made and covered by the GNA at the launch of the Ghana Tourist Guide publication on Monday, 23rd November 2009, and repeatedly carried by Adom Fm primetime news and posted viciously on Ghana Web, the Honourable Majority Leader – Hon. Albin Bagbin is reported to have expressed dissatisfaction at our services. In his elaboration on what he considers as poor working ethics, he said our “waiters walked away while talking to them”.

In a follow-up comment by the author of the story on Ghana web, the author enumerated services that the Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm DO NOT OFFER!! These enumerated services on the Ghana web article were very curiously the same services that our “pull - him - down “ detractors have always used when in their negative bid to stifle healthy innovative tourism competition, dragged us to the High Court in 2007 AND LOST THEIR CASE IN A JUDGMENT IN OUR FAVOUR. Some of the services the author higlighted and which we don’t offer included luxury-pampering, adventure, beauty therapy! – it is obvious the author has not seen our numerous billboards, brouchures, fliers, nor visited our web-site (www.holytrinityspa.com) in the last four years or was intentionality malicious!

While we do not in any way claim that our staff are perfect, we think the Majority Leader’s statement was not a true reflection of our quality and type of services.

The Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm is a branch of the Holy Trinity Medical Centre. It has received several National and International Awards as testimonials for its excellent services including: • Best Health/Medical Tourism Destination in West Africa • 1st Ghana Private Medical Award for Promotion of a Healthy Society in Ghana • Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIMG) Award for Excellence in Private Sector Healthcare delivery. • Gold Star Award for Exemplary Leadership in Healthcare in West Africa • Ghana Golden Jubilee Business and Financial Excellence Awards • Member – Ghana Club 100 • Leader of the Health Sector (2008) by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre.

The Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm is the first Destination SPA, and Hospital & Rehabilitation SPA in Africa. In an age where: • Lifestyle - induced ailments such as Hypertension, Diabetes, Stroke, Heart Attack, sudden Death, Cancers, Sleep Disorders, Sexual Disorders and Stress among several others, have assumed centre stage in global health demographics: • An era in which executives and several corporate personnel find it difficult to go for regular or periodic medical check ups; • An era where several people are in denial that they may be unhealthy but not necessarily “ sick “ with ailments such as high blood pressure, early cancer, enlarged heart, snoring and other obstructive sleep disorders: • An age where several top executives including ministers of state who are breadwinners die at the prime of their lives suddenly from ailments that could be better managed with proactive regular screening and counseling such as heart attacks, cancers (including prostate cancer! etc) : The innovative concept of Healthy Lifestyle Conferencing with Behaviour change seminars by a multidisciplinary team of professionals in SPAs is a new worldwide healthcare concept that brings health / medical service without loss of productivity to several busy, stressed and unhealthy but not sick people especially in the corporate world. The Healthy Lifestyle Retreat with Behaviour Change Seminars is just one of our many services. that have gained both national and international commendation in every aspect of our service delivery amid a very tough investment environment.

The staff at the SPA include Resident Medical Doctors, Nurses, Laboratory Technologists, Psychologists, Dieticians, SPA Therapists, Psychiatrists, physiotherapists, Caterers, Waiters, Receptionists, Exercise Physiologists, Bible - Based Counsellors and several others teamed up to provide preventive, curative, rehabilitative, orthodox, complementary and alternative health/medical services packaged to suit clients convenience and discerning expectation.

The Holy Trinity SPA & Health Farm is pioneering Health / Medical Tourism in Ghana and has made huge impact not only in Ghana and in the West Africa sub region but especially also from U.S.A, U.K, Uganda. It is Not surprising that on 17th and 18th October 2009, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Network “Focus on Business Africa” generously projected the high quality of our services to the entire World. The BBC Team flew directly to Ghana after their own research on standards of world excellence.

A SPA is not a Hotel. The SPA is a Health/Medical Facility. Services in a Destination SPA are booked in advance all over the world .

The the Holy Trinity Spa & Health Farm in its 5 years has seen several people used political, nepotism, legal, vicious lies, misrepresentations and several negative business “ethics” and strategies to unhealthily “compete” with our innovative health/medical tourism product but failed. Some of these people have set up SPAs even without medical licence and their Spas have collapsed. Ironically this self-imposed failure of their Spa is making them more vicious.

There are 4 traditional arms of government – executive, legislative, judiciary and the media (the forth estate).

Governments have identified and propounded that one of the keys to a rapid national economic development depends on building a vibrant private sector as the engine of growth and additionally developing a government – private sector partnership that is Conduicive for business success.

Economists have also expounded the need for a national positive orientation towards national development. One of these is the fight against indiscipline campaign in our society. • Why would a reputable media company as Adom Fm rush to present a one-sided view of one –single person on primetime news on air – without interviewing the other party? • What is the code of ethics including checks and balances in the Ghana New Agency that would prevent their staff to demanding ransom or altermatively paste a one – sided investment – damaging view of one person on Ghana web? • Why would the majority leader as a legislator who has knowledge of statutory regulatory bodies which have been instituted through parliament to maintain industry standards in Ghana not report a perceived poor standard to the statutory regulatory body, such as the Ghana Tourist Board or the Private Hospitals and Maternity Homes Board. Regulatory bodies have the power to investigate alleged poor services and the power to sanction or recommend a correction in poor services?

This year, the Holy Trinity Spa & Health Farm has successfully hosted Healthy Lifestyle Conferences / Retreats for several Ghanaian and foreign groups. These include; • West African Conference “Security Watch” with state Governors from Nigeria. • Office of the President on 2 occasions this year • Ministry of Energy, Agriculture and several public and Private organisations and churches.

The Budget Review and Healthy Lifestyle Retreat from 25th October 2009 to 29th October 2009 for our Honorable Paliamentarians was very delightful to almost all our Parliamentarians. Health/medical services were hugely patronized by almost all our honuourable MPS! Not a single person made a single negative ccustomer complaint on the many Guest Satisfaction Assessment forms filled during and after the retreat!

Several Parliamentarians were delighted by our “hospitality” component, including: • Our breath-taking 300-seater Conference facilities inside the Volta River – the only such facility in Ghana with all state-of-the-art fixtures & fittings for conferencing which all worked to precision. • The provision of varied and Healthy Ghanaian Diet • Neat accommodation with all required guest expectations. • Prompt service, smiling, courteous staff etc We have no record of any complaint by any parliamentarian, let alone the Hon. Majority Leader – Mr. Albin Bagbin - as alleged viciously on Adom FM and on Ghana Web story.

The majority leader met the Chief Executive Officer of the facility for three days and never reported his alleged poor working ethics but went on air and the internet!!

The only challenge, which was not a complaint, was the bizarre ORDER by the Honourable Majority Leader to serve “a special guest in a special way”. This guest was NOT part of the Programme, have no booking or prior arrangement and was not known by the organizers. The persistent order by the Hon. Majority Leader for this “ special guest” to be served in a “special way” would have compromised our efficient service to the 124 other guests for whom our Destination SPA services were meant for.

We have worked hard to be the 34th leading company among Ghana’s Top 100 companies by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre.

We have even worked harder (including staff training) to become the Leader in the Health Sector in Ghana in 2008.

As private sector investors, we will continue to improve on our performance and especially to educate clients, build our capacity in our rural investment environment where strategic human resource management is vital for survival. We would wish to have many more workers with “marginal idling capacity” to handle the occasional very difficult “influential” customer who we nonetheless need to satisfy as we face the global challenge to market Ghana as Health / Medical Tourist Destination.

SIGNED DR. FELIX ANYAH HOLY TRINITY