The authorities in Zimbabwe have closed nearly 70 hotels and restaurants in the last week for operating without licences or being used for illicit sex, a minister said on Friday.
”We ordered the closure of these restaurants and some of these small hotels that were being turned into brothels since they were not registered,” Environment Minister Francis Nhema told Agence France-Presse.
”It’s just a minority group. In fact, they are a few bad apples in the industry,” he said.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority boss Karikoga Kaseke said several tourist facilities were found to be operating illegally since the investigation was launched last Friday.
”So far we have closed 69 unregistered facilities but we have discovered that there are 127 unregistered facilities.
”Some of these hotels were turned into brothels, something which gives the country a bad name because some tourists have lost their money from these hideouts.”
Last year, the cash-strapped Southern African nation prosecuted some 50 hotels and tourist resorts for allegedly failing to remit foreign-currency earnings to the central bank.
Foreigners are compelled by law to settle their hotel bills in United States dollars or other major foreign currencies.
Zimbabwe’s economy has been on a downturn for the last seven years, marked by foreign-currency shortages, triple-digit inflation, high unemployment and an acute shortage of basic commodities such as the national staple, cornmeal, and cooking oil.
Various government initiatives to raise foreign reserves, including a scheme to persuade millions of Zimbabweans working overseas to remit money home, have yielded little success. — Sapa-AFP