Berjaya awaits Government payment while Russian hotels are forced to pay their staffere’s
Here’s another blatant case of double standards as the Government forces Coral Strand and Savoy hotel owners, yet hasn’t paid its own bill to the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Hotel.
The Independent Newspaper has learnt that the staff of Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay hotel were paid on the last legal day allowed by law, while the hotel has itself not been paid by the Government for its use as a Covid Quarantine hotel. Most people believe that the Berjaya is the luckiest of tourism establishments here, because government selected it to set up a quarantine centre for COVID19 management. At a time where the tourism industry had crashed due to the pandemic and other hotels were stopping their operations, this was seen as a lifesaver for the hotel. Questioned by journalists at the time, Public Health Commissioner Jude Gedeon maintained that the state has not arbitrarily commissioned the hotel as is possible under the Public Health Act during a case of public health emergency; but that rather it has negotiated a contract with the proprietors. When the Finance Minister revealed the amount for the first invoice everyone was shocked and felt that it was outrageous. Government said it would be going back to the negotiating table. Meanwhile the hotel applied for aid but did not get any assistance under the Financial Assistance for Jobs Retention Scheme from the government and therefore it had to pay from its own reserves.
The hotel’s management kept quiet and waited for the contract matter to be sorted out. After months of running the hotel as a quarantine centre, the government has still not paid its rent. The staff feel aggrieved.
“Many people tell us we are lucky, our hotel is getting millions from the government and so on; when in reality we are in dire straits and we are neither getting paid the contract nor assistance to pay our workers,” said a Seychellois member of the hotel’s management.The hotel’s situation is tenuous and it remains to be seen if it will get assistance for the month of August, as the government has said that all tourism establishments which will qualify this time around even if they do have some funds of their own. No one quite knows what is happening with the contract.
“This week we had our weekly meeting with the GM who told us, that the government still hasn’t paid us what it owes us. We are informed that the Vice President said that the file about the contract is on the table of the Secretary of State and no one wants to work on it!” the management member claimed.
Last week government stepped in to oblige the joint management of the Coral Strand Hotel and the SAVOY Resort and Spa to pay their local staff their full salary which has come from the FA4JR scheme, while the same government is not honoring its own payment of rental of a facility which it is still using to the tune of some 15 million rupees.
How’s that for double standards?!
