La Palm Beach Hotel, the exotic five-star status hotel in Accra was under siege yesterday after a security-services inspired gestapo style swoop caused a desperate flight of all expatriate staff to their embassies in Accra cowering in fright.
Chronicle monitoring of the hotel, built under clearly controversial financial terms began last week and culminated in the discovery of the shock arrest of the Front Desk Manager of the hotel at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) when she was about to board a South African Airlines flight out to Johannesburg.
Ms. Caroline Jackson, a British-South African, was hustled out of line with no real explanation, court warrant or orders as prescribed by the laws of the land and prevent from flying.
Chronicle learnt that she had completed her contract and had duly signed off from her employers and was therefore not fleeing from the country. There was a small matter of a guest from EBL contractors, a guest of the hotel who had failed to settle a bill of $4,928.00 and some more local currency since January 29 this year which remains in the books under her charge.
The Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) preferred no charges against her by noon yesterday but her experience sent other expatriates scampering for cover as threats by local staff of the hotel drop broad hints of clearing the house of the expatriate staff, an issue that had featured in angry memos to and fro in correspondence sighted by Chronicle.
Their fears were justified as the General Manager of La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, part of the Charles Asare engineered Golden Beach Hotels Group, Mr. Richard Landon, was asked to surrender his passport to the BNI. He panicked and made a beeline to the British Embassy where he holed up till the outspoken diplomat known for his straight non-diplomatic cracking of his tongue, stormed the hotel.
By this time, telephone calls had alerted two top members of the government Messrs Amoako-Tuffuor and K. G. Osei Bonsu and when they raced to the site they were confronted with choice vocabulary from an irate Craig Murray, deputy British High Commissioner. Craig referred them to the excesses of the previous government that they had been fighting against and warned against repetition by the present government. He noted that the cause of the altercation was a matter that should have been a simple police matter at worse and required no involvement of National Security or BNI.
An apologetic Amoako Tuffuor pleaded for understanding on behalf of a 'nervous Security Service', Chronicle gathered.
Taking a cue from Craig, an emboldened Theo Mostert, First Secretary Administration and Consular of the South African Embassy demanded an immediate return of the passport of the South African that was being held by the Security Service. A phone call by JAK's men on the spot went out, and it was expected that Caroline and the steaming conflict between the Chief Financial Officer of the company and the CEO could not come on as Board Chairman Mr. Amissah-Arthur drove in and wondered about the racket.
In the interim, the German Chief Executive of the GBH Group Mr. Klaus Riebensahn grew agitated as he watched all his expatriate staff run for cover at their embassies. Momentarily but unknown to guests, the absence caused a temporary Mayday scenario.
"This is pure harassment and it is becoming impossible for me to fulfill the terms of my contract, if this continues a day more we may all have to desert… which is what they are looking for" moaned Klaus loudly over all the commotion going on round his ears.
Mr. Klaus conformed that an audit team had earlier been sent by the SSNIT Acting Director General Mr. Eric Adjei for yet another audit. He said even the BNI was asking questions about their loans from Ghana Commercial Bank which Chronicle had reported about last year. (An exposure of more than ?70 billion cedis of unsecured facility that was destabilising GCB's liquidity situation).
Statement by Caroline to the authorities referred to her handing over her file for recoveries to Mr. Martin Abayeteye who had indicated that the monies owed by EBL had still not been paid, suggesting that the storm that brought in such fire power and threats to the human rights of people was over the small change.
La Palm Beach Hotel was built by Rexol International owned by Sir Tamman, a British Jew with substantial cash from GCB and an ECGD funds (European Credit Guarantee Department guarantee) of over 300 billion cedis.
The amount guaranteed by the Ghanaian taxpayer remains in the books as a public charge.
Tamman used part of the money to build condominiums at Cantonments, which he sold off and pocketed the returns, still failing to service the loan.
With his contacts with Mr. Eddie Annan and Mrs. Rawlings, no one pursued him for the loans. Mrs. Helen Lokko, the former Managing Director, release a further 50 billion cedis for the hotel project and failed to collect even documents on the land as security.
For years, the project came to a complete standstill until a new Director General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) was tasked by the board to get La Palm Royal Beach Hotel ready for an international conference of Heads of States.
The was a cue for movement, as Mr. Charles Asare, the substantive Director General pumped in more money to get the hotel off, and reined in two other slow under performing hotels, Elmina Hotel, bombed out by his predecessor Mr. Henry Dei in shoddy deals, and another outlying hotel, Busua Beach, in the Western Region to form what is now known as the Golden Beach Hotel Group.
Tamman had put in only a fraction of what SSNIT and the ECGD loans brought in yet he commanded 70 per cent of the ownership. The SSNIT chief brought in external consultants, Messrs James Akpo and Kwesi Agbley to look through and determine the proper status of the shareholding.
Over weeks of intense wrestling and bargaining, they reversed the ownership 70 - 30 per cent in favour of SSNIT and still held back monies allegedly owed Tamman who also owned the construction company that carried out aspects of the project.
He appeared as the Managing Director for the Hotel. Within weeks almost every contract as the hotel - from computer suppliers to car rentals went fast to Eddie.
Eddie Annan himself was given a frisking at the airport when he sought to fly out of the airport last week on a business trip overseas. The complete shakedown of the myriad of mega deals may just be beginning.
