The Kwara State Executive Council has approved the control and supervision of Kwara Hotel by the state Ministry of Business, Innovation and Technology.
The decision is a policy reversal of removing the management of the hotel from Harmony Holdings Limited.
The interventionist decision is a step to save the hotels from its perennial crisis, including facility collapse and huge debts that made the hotel default in salary payments and efficient service delivery.
This was contained in a statement issued in Ilorin on Saturday by the Kwara State Commissioner for Communications, Olabode Towoju.
According to the statement, contrary to the vision of establishing the hotel, the government has had to pay the workers, including the bailouts released this week.
At the council meeting chaired by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq on Friday, the council approved that all assets, liabilities, structures, workers and operations of the hotel be taken over by the BIT Ministry.
The council approval followed deliberations on a memorandum presented by the BIT ministry.
The council also directed that the Ministries of Finance, Planning and Economic Development should henceforth make budgetary provisions for the repositioning and rebranding of the hotel to realise the objectives of the founding fathers.
The council similarly approved that BIT Ministry should take charge of the Ilorin Cargo Terminal Limited.
The once-successful Kwara Hotel, which was established by the administration of late Brigadier General David Bamigboye, was initially placed under the Ministry of Commerce and Trade, which recently metamorphosed to BIT.
The statement also recalled that the hotel was last refurbished some 20 years ago.
The fortunes of the hotel have however nosedived over the past decade as its facilities collapsed amid mismanagement, low revenue generation and inability to pay staff salary.
The workers had during the week embarked on a protest over unpaid salaries and state of the hotel.
