It is now certain that Four Points by Sheraton Hotels started by the former administration will now be formally opened to the public in April 2020.
This is coming on the great efforts of Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel’s administration which is working assiduously to ensure that the magnificent hospitality facility is fully completed with all the required international facilities of a five star concern.
The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Special Duties and Aviation, Rt. Hon Okpolupm Etteh, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with Crystal Express also revealed that the Ibom Tropicana Hotel and other facilities within the arena have been contracted out to investors through Public Private Partnership arrangement (PPP).
According to him, “Four Points by Sheraton Hotels was constructed by the previous administration but could not be put to use due to the non-availability of operating equipment and facilities. Those are the items that the hotel managers would be using to operate the place. There were no furniture or information and communication technology (ICT) equipment. The external works such as internal roads, car parks lightings, landscaping and driver’s lobby among others were not available. All these were not there. It is the present Governor Udom Emmanuel administration that has now put all that in place.”
The Commissioner, who was emphatic on the April opening date of the new hotel further clarified, “Additionally, since the hotel is expected to operate in line with international standards, it requires befitting facilities to be able to achieve that. The hotel, formerly to be managed by Le Meridien, is now run by Marriot International. When the change was officially effected, Marriot International requested that the facilities at the hotel must be upgraded to meet international required standards. Therefore the present administration had to take up the whole completion of the hotel in line with the required standard.
“At the moment, we have been informed that the hotel will be open to public by the month of April, 2020. We still have some items under various levels of procurement.”
Etteh listed the areas the Udom Emmanuel’s administration has intervened in the upgrading of the new hotel facility to include,” procurement and delivery of all outstanding operative equipment, furniture fittings and equipment, information and communication technology facilities.
“There is the agreed 7.2million U.S dollars released to the hotel operators by the Akwa Ibom State Government. There have been delivery and installations of many items including television sets, projectors, artworks, construction of drivers lobby.
“Also, there have been installations of automatic fire prevention system, FM 200. 20 KVA inverter system and additional 3.5kilowarts equal type AC.
“Equally, there have been construction of 310m access/link roads to the hotel; completion of all outstanding landscaping, procurement of transformers and construction of power supply from the national grid to the hotel to ensure availability of constant power supply.
“Initially, there was no electricity from the national grid, but Marriot insisted that the hotel must be linked up to the national grid.
“They also requested the replacement of an already installed kitchen and food preparation area and all the fittings that were there had to be replaced.
“The new administration has procured closed circuit cameras to complete the installation of the CCTV in the hotel. All these were not in place, but the present administration now put all of them in place.
“There have been provisions of outdoor showers in the swimming pool area, construction of permanent fencing to seal up the rehabilitation of the general hospital fence. The fence did not have electric wire as requested by Marriott and we had to put it in place.”
In the same vein, the commissioner said investors have shown enormous interest in Tropicana Hotels and other facilities within the area, stressing that the new Shoprite mall presently being constructed within the premises will soon be completed.
In his words, “No the Tropicana facilities are not abandoned. The state government has set up a public private partnership (PPP) model to be in charge of the project. If you go towards the back of the Tropicana, you will see an ongoing construction. That is Shoprite being constructed. It is part of the PPP. We are at the last stage of documentation and sealing the deal for the PPP model. The idea is to hand over the completion and operations of the Tropicana Hotel to an investor. These are projects that cannot be run by the government. If you need a return on investment then you must engage the private hands.”
