>Why Hotel Was Closed—Okorocha
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After three years of wobbling performance and the resultant lack of patronage, the Imo Concorde Hotel and Casino has finally packed up business.
But Governor Rochas Okorocha says he intentionally shut down the five-star hotel, popularly known as the Pearl of the East to embark on holistic renovation in it.
The hotel had been performing woefully in the recent past following its concessioning by the governor who claimed the concession was done to achieve optimum for it. This is despite the hundreds of millions naira reportedly pumped into the hotel by Governor Okorocha.
But since then, the hotel had not been running to its full capacity as people no longer patronized it. Those who did, had bitter experiences to share as they had to abandon their programme half way as a result of lack of back-up generator to power the hotel.
Since these experiences, the once Pearl of the East had become a ghost of itself.
Even the staff of the hotel were said to have been owed arrears of salaries, a development that led to frequent protest and demonstrations against the hotel management and the government.
Even the banks in the hotel had to be forced to buy supportive generator to enable them power their business, the only serious activity going on in the hotel.
However, in a statement signed by Mr. Sam Onwuemedo and made available to journalists on Thursday in Owerri, Okorocha said that “the government temporarily closed down the hotel for intensive renovation to take place to meet the standard the government had envisaged, abinitio.
“The initial renovation work carried out by the state government soon after taking over the administration of the state did not meet the standard the government expected. The governor came to know about that when he inspected the hotel for the accommodation of the members of the Nigeria Guild of editors who had their conference in May in Owerri for three days.
“When they left, the government decided to do more works in the hotel because between the months of August and September, this year, the state will be hosting the Nigeria Bar Association led by Chief Nwali, and the National Media Merit Award [NMMA] ceremony.  The hotel will also be  in use. Hence, the thorough renovation expected this time.
“There is no other reason that would have warranted the closure of the hotel except the renovation I have talked about. The hotel is the property of the state government and it has the responsibility to upgrade it or raise its standard whenever it desires.
“On the claim that the staff of the hotel are being owed arrears of salary, it is also important to state that it is not true. The three months salary arrears owed the staff have been cleared. We want to be proved wrong on this.
“Some workers of the hotel are complaining because the management had given indication that because of the high level of sabotage in the hotel, there would be a second look at the record of the individual staff  once the hotel is reopened for business.
“Those talking about the non-payment of the staff of the hotel should get the fact and make it public to prove their claim. The state government would continue to do the best for the state not minding the refusal or failure of the opposition in the state to acknowledge such lofty works”.
