Henry Quartey ordered the closure of beaches on December 24 2021
Rational behind closer of beaches not good enough
The Regional Minister of the Greater Accra Region, Henry Quartey, ordered the closure of beach resorts in the region for the festive period as a measure to curb the spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.
However, the order came only a day before Christmas which did not sit well with a lot of beach resort owners and managers.
In an interview with GhanaWeb, the General Manager La Pleasure Beach Resort, Samuel Neequaye, has said the closure of the beach resort would cost his entity over GH¢600,000.
He said the resort was going to lose funds in terms of gate revenue as well as commission from the vendors who sell food and drinks at the beach.
“For the gate, we can tell you that after the ban we would lose more than 6 billion old cedis. As for the vendor, I can tell because we have 14 big restaurants and about 30 small restaurants and table tops so it is a huge loss of money,” he said.
Samuel Neequaye questioned the rational and timing of the ban, saying, “we want them to explain the reason for the closure of the beaches because if it is a ban on public gathering, look at Shata Wale. He did a programme at the stadium, yesterday there was this Diasa final, people trooped to that place today.”
He added that if the ban was to prevent people from swimming, the minister should have informed them so that they would open only open the restaurant section of the resort.
On the timing of the ban, he told GhanaWeb that the regional ministry should have informed them at least a week before Christmas.
“Our problem is the timing, 24 hours to Christmas and you said the facilities should be closed down, meanwhile people have purchased items drinks, vegetables to prepare for the Christmas.
“So that is our problem, they should have told us the last Monday before the 24th December that these are the measures that we are going to take then we know but just coming to close it I think it is not fair”, he added
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