Closure of Hotels Meets Stiff Opposition

BUT FOR the maturity and tact employed by the police, and the enforcement team of the Ghana Tourist Board, the exercise embarked on over the weekend to close down a number of hotels operating as brothels and unlicensed night clubs could have been marred by nasty clashes between the team and some of the operators of these facilities and pimps.

At one of the nightclubs, Sonidad located at Achimota opposite the Goil filling station, an angry mob gathered to prevent the police team from effecting the arrest of the caretaker of the club who refused to show proof of registration but admitted that they had been operating.

As the caretaker was being led away a man in the crowd shouted that they would not allow the man to be sent away; this generated a heated debate, and at a point he picked up a stick and piece of cement block which he threatened to hit the armed policeman with, if he touched him.

However calm was eventually restored, when he agreed to make an undertaking not to operate the nightclub until he had properly registered it.

At two hotels at Adabraka, the Shield and Cumberland, which are noted for operating as brothels and for which reason they were closed down the fact that the hotels were operating as brothels were beyond doubt as condoms were on sale at their receptions, and dozens of used ones littered the bathrooms and filled rubbish bins.

Couples whose ages ranged between19 and 40 years were found in the majority of their rooms having sex.

At the Shield hotel, Chronicle learnt from one of the female prostitutes that rooms were hired out for ?15,000 to male customers provided they showed signs of having a female partner.

Meanwhile, although the receptionist's register had only seven names on it, there were more than 30 people in rooms at the time the team inspected them.

At the Cumberland Hotel the team was pelted with stones by a number of young men who were identified as pimps of the prostitutes by some residents in the area; luckily the police presence deterred them from causing any harm.

In a chat with Mr. Alex Boakye, a development planner with the Ghana Tourist Board (GTB) and a member of the enforcement over the reason for the exercise, he explained that tourism is a very competitive industry and with other African countries all trying to woo investors and tourists certain standards have to be met by those in the industry.

He added that operating sub standard facilities and brothels are a blemish on the industry and so the GTB is setting up a permanent monitoring team to monitor facilities that have been identified to upgrade their facilities.

And anyone who dares to and still operates without a licence will be prosecuted in the courts.