Minna 5-star hotel weathers the storm

Equipment for the construction work have tripled since Daily Trust visited the site  of the Minna 5-star Hotel early last month. So were the number of workers. The concrete pumping machine for mixing 600 bags of cement was warming for operation when our correspondent paid a second visit to the project site last Monday. The […]

Equipment for the construction work have tripled since Daily Trust visited the site  of the Minna 5-star Hotel early last month. So were the number of workers. The concrete pumping machine for mixing 600 bags of cement was warming for operation when our correspondent paid a second visit to the project site last Monday.
The project manager, Mallam Aliu Ibrahim said consultants on various aspects of the hotel are at different stages of progress.  “The interior designers, the lighting consultant, the exterior finish designer, the landscape team, the facility managers amongst a few are at work,” he explained.
He said suppliers of finishing materials are also preparing shipment of items such as the central air conditioning, the exterior marble, the glass cladding and carpets amongst others.
 According to him, barring any unforeseen circumstances, the facility will be functional in 24 months from now.
“The level of completion already achieved as of today is over 90 percent of the structural works. In fact, only the pent house is left,” he disclosed.
Our correspondent however drew his attention to the fact that the project specification in the agreement was storeys and that at five storeys the contractors could not have achieved 90 percent completion.
Ibrahim acknowledged that the hotel was designed to be a 305-room edifice.
He explained: “During the course of construction both parties mutually agreed that the scope be reduced to 170 rooms to enable a timely completion as well have a successfully running hotel with high occupancy rather than have a huge edifice with lower occupancy.”
He said that in the event that the need arises for an expansion of the building, it can easily be continued to the initial room numbers.
But even at five storeys, the hotel has already dwarfed all structures in the ancient city. It is one project the immediate past administration was in a hurry to commission but refused to be part of a circuit show of officialdom. It prefered rather to develop at its own pace-making haste albeit slowly.
As a project financed through public-private partnership, its destiny is rather in the hands of the private initiators rather than the host government.
“It will be good to mention here that as of today, we have not received any financial contribution from the state towards this project except the bank guarantee which it has issued to us, and all of the funds spent till date are raised by us, Accessfield Nigeria Limited,” the project manager noted.
With the suspension of activities in all the state government’s projects following the inauguration of the new administration in the state, works on the hotel continued though at a snail speed.
The project was said not to be among those the new government’s infrastructure committee evaluated to determine their desirability and questionable handling, as well as financial implication.
 Industrial watchers were optimistic that it would not be part of the projects to be caught in the whirlwind of change especially in the face of the economic reality occasioned by the dwindling allocation from the federation account. The state government’s 20.16 percent equity contribution, about N1.4billion, is only payable when the concessionaire completes the structural works of the hotel. That also from all indication, will not be a problem, especially with the new administration in the state embracing the project and looking onto it as one of its potential revenue source.
As a consummate businessman, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello was said to have been excited by the hotel’s “many potentials” even as some question its desirability at conception in a state not quite cosmopolitan as Niger. 
Management agreed that it is dogged by such inquiries not only in the country but from “all foreign financial and technical partners that we have approached during the course of negotiations.”
Ibrahim said decisions to build such projects are based on business needs of not only the present but also the future.
 “It will not be known to many people but the hotel is being situated taking into consideration the progress anticipated within the state in the near future. We are in partnership with several groups to provide other facilities which will give the rise for the need of an international five-star level accommodation,” he explained, adding “it will be clear in the very near future what measures we are currently putting in place to achieve a good occupancy for the hotel.”
Management may also be targeting the growing opportunities that now make the Power State the beautiful bride of individuals and corporate organisations.
“The Baro Port will open a new vista; so also the Zungeru power project and with the choking business environment in Nigeria’s capital city, Niger is the next destination,” Sulieman Babajo, a tourism expert offered.
It is hoped that the Minna 5-star Hotel with facilities such as a conference center, various meeting rooms, swimming pool, gymnasium, offices, roof gardens, roof top telescope viewing platform, ambassadorial and presidential suites, nine-hole golf course, ample parking spaces, water fountains, panoramic lifts among others, will be the destination of many.