Thursday, February 13, 2025

Govt paid hotels, lodges for Covid-19 services not rendered

As Covid-19 ran rampant across the country, the government and hospitality establishments took turns taking advantage of each other’s desperation in a bid to make (and save) a quick buck.

First it was the establishments (being hotels and lodges) that took advantage of a situation in which the government found itself unable to quarantine Covid-19 restrictees at its “uninhabitable” facilities. The restrictees, who possibly had Covid-19 and could infect other people, certainly had to be isolated. It was then that the Ministry of Health and Wellness decided to accommodate them hotels and lodges across the country.

“However, it was observed that no proper assessment was done before the utilization of the commercial facilities for quarantine purposes. It emerged that neither the number of people to be quarantined nor the charges were anticipated and negotiated or agreed upon with the respective service providers beforehand, which led to the MoHW incurring a bill amounting to P58 900 217.16 for quarantine accommodation services procured between April and June 2020,” says the Auditor General’s report on “The Preparedness and Response of the Country Towards the COVID-19 Pandemic and Management of the Relief Fund.” 

The deal to accommodate Covid-19 restrictees at hotels and lodges was made between three organisations that have never operated by word of mouth: MoHW, Botswana Tourism Organisation and Hospitality and Tourism Association of Botswana. Oddly though, the report says that the Ministry “initially believed that the hotels had pledged their facilities as part of their corporate social responsibility.” When the auditors came around in August last year, they wanted to see something in black and white that confirmed such undertaking. However, that request turned out nothing.

“It could not be established whether there was any Memorandum of Agreement and/or written agreement between the Ministry and the pledgers, which could have provided evidence for the pledges made, and the type of accommodation and costs. This had led to the Government paying facilities for services not rendered.”

The government soon wised up – or “learned a lesson” in the language of the audit report. Upon realisation that Covid-19 would be around for a really long time, the Presidential Task Force recalibrated its business relationship with hospitality establishments. It floated an expression of interest for provision of services to quarantined persons at a standard rate of P500 per day, inclusive of VAT, for the provision of accommodation and meals. Magically, the implementation of the standard rate “led to a substantial decrease in the cost of quarantine accommodation services, such that as at 10 August 2020, the government had spent P4 385 989.30 compared to the initial P58 900 217.16 which was spent between the months of April and June 2020. Thus, only 7 percent of the initial cost incurred was utilized under the standard rate arrangement.”

Another part of the report reveals the following: “An analysis of the expenditure incurred on quarantine services revealed that initially the expenditure was higher when the country had fewer COVID-19 cases. For instance, by May 2020, the total COVID-19 cases stood at 35, whilst in August there were 1633 cases. The standard rate of P500 came at a time when the country was experiencing an increase in the number of cases which implied that more quarantine services and funds would be required to strengthen prevention and control mechanisms.”

As Sunday Standard reported three months ago, hospitality establishments saw the P500 standard rate as a rip-off but were powerless to do anything about the situation. One hotel manager rightly stated that nowhere in Botswana would P500 be enough to buy a guest a night’s accommodation at a hotel or lodge plus a full day’s meals as well as housekeeping supplies and amenities.

For breakfast, hotels and lodges were contractually required to provide guests with cereal/porridge with milk plus tea/coffee as well as assorted fruit and bottled water (500ml) or, bread slices plus eggs (boiled or fried), tea/coffee, assorted fruits and bottled water (500ml). For both lunch and supper, the guests got starch (rice/papa/bogobe/dumpling/spaghetti/macaroni; vegetables in two varieties with the following options: beetroot, spinach, rape, butternut, coleslaw, mixed vegetables and fried cabbage; protein in the form of chicken, beef and fish; one soft drink can; and 500ml of bottled water.

Additionally, establishments had to provide standard housekeeping supplies and amenities in the form of toiletries (packaged soaps, shampoo, body lotion and shower gel), toilet rolls, sanitary bin bags and coffee/tea kit being electric kettle as well as coffee/tea, sugar and creamer satchets.

Said a disgruntled hotel manager: “In reality, the P500 that the government pays covers the food only and to all intents and purposes, the accommodation and convenience amenities are provided free of charge.”

There was an additional cost that establishments had to incur: that of laundering bedding at the end of the quarantine period. Ordinarily, bedding is changed on a daily basis (or so guests are led to believe) but with Covid-quarantining, it was only changed at the end of a guest’s stay. What that meant was that if one stayed at a hotel for 14 days as a Covid restrictee, they would use the same bedding for that entire period. A hotel worker said that detergents that were used to launder this bedding (some of which would be hideously dirty if a room was occupied by a guest with poor hygiene habits) was prohibitively expensive. Curtains were also laundered in order to fully sterilize a room.

“Some guests are under-age children who still wet the bed,” said an industry source. “You can imagine what housekeeping staff has to deal with when Covid guests check out.”

Establishments typically use white linen bedding but that colour is ill-suited for Covid-quarantine stay, especially when guests have poor hygiene habits. Resultantly, some establishments had opted for dark-coloured bedding. The contract with the government stated that hospitality establishments had to bear all costs for providing services. That meant that these establishments paid for the new bedding and were not be reimbursed by the government.

Considering the circumstances, this deal was almost a shakedown. The hospitality industry was one of the worst Covid-affected and operating on the half-a-loaf-is-better-than-nothing rationale, some establishments were forced to accept what was without doubt a very raw deal.

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