Gov’t decries sub-standard hotels in Manyu

By Ekumtambe Eku in Mamfe
Some hotels and hotel owners in Manyu Division have been fined heavy sums for failing to up-grade their services to meet recommended standards. Almost all the over 32 registered hotels in Manyu were found to be sub-standard by a visiting team of experts from the Ministry of Tourism and Leisure in Yaounde. The managers of these hotels risk paying up to FCFA 2 million for flouting the regulations guiding the Tourism industry in the country.
    The Government decided to impose fines to defaulters as a means towards forcing the hotels in the country to rise up to stipulated standards. The decision was arrived at after several years of intensive field campaigns to sensitize hotel dealers on the need to up-grade standards and improve on the quality of their services, according Mrs. Rose Tarh, Divisional Delegate for Tourism for Manyu.

    However, when we asked the delegate to list the hotels and managers that were sanctioned, Mrs. Tarh refused to disclose the names, seemingly for professional reasons.  She only told us that the decision emerged after an inspection team from Yaounde stormed Mamfe and visited the unsuspecting hotels without prior warning.
 Asked to assess her days as Divisional Delegate for Tourism in Manyu, she likened them to a car on a terrible road. She said her problems were made worse by the uncooperative attitude of some of her collaborators.
     She explained that most hotels in Manyu are patronized by big politicians and economic barons who take advantage of their privilege positions to contravene existing rules and norms.
She wondered aloud why some hotel promoters should construct their hotels without seeking technical advice from the competent authorities.
    “This is what happens in Manyu: individuals go ahead to construct or transform a building into a hotel without seeking expert advice only to find themselves working against the established rules.”
    She frowned at Hotels which do not submit their monthly statistics as required by law and warned them on the security implications and the fines attached.
Another vexing issue, she noted was the promotion of promiscuity (short rest) by hotels, saying hotel rooms are meant for passing the night not for “short rest”. 
     She advised the affected hotels to comply with the recommendations of the inspectors before the administration’s sledge hammer lands on them.