Tiassalé, The legal department of the Banner Culture Study and Development Company (SCB) on Friday May 12, 2023 denied the accusation that the company had closed the only access to the hotel complex Refuge du Bandama, located in the town of N’douci, but also that its general manager would be “a racist from Françafrique”.

In a press briefing held in front of the disputed barrier, Mrs. Élodie N’Guessan from the company’s legal department, after a guided tour of the entire area and the access roads to the hotel, indicated that in reality, “three ways provide access to the hotel, contrary to what its manager says”.

She explains that ‘the lane which is closed, and which is the shortest to access the hotel, had been opened to traffic following a memorandum of understanding between the SCB and the hotel (…) but it is the refusal of certain hotel guests to comply with the health and safety measures imposed in the context of compliance with the quality standard, and in the context of the fight against diseases that could decimate its activity, which we have been obliged to to question the protocol and to close the route that we have created’.

Ms. N’Guessan consequently asks hotel guests and workers to go through the two other access routes which, according to her, are secure.

She says she does not understand “this media relentlessness” against the banana-producing company and its first manager who have always shown “their willingness to collaborate and live together by facilitating the construction of the family residence (initial project) which has become a hotel, but also by the passage of the electric medium voltage line through the connection to its line’.

Welcoming the decision of the Abidjan Court of Appeal dated April 25, 2023 which quashed the decision taken at first instance in Tiassalé ordering the lifting of the barrier, Ms. N’guessan, recalls “for all intents and purposes” that workers and hotel guests have always had access to the hotel through the passages indicated by the SCB and, with the obligation to comply with the company’s sanitary measures.

For his part, Konan Koffi, Head of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) noted the health risks associated with Fusario (TR4), commonly known as “banana AIDS” which could destroy 800 hectares of bananas and more. 900 direct jobs due to uncontrolled visitors and tourists from countries at risk.

The cohabitation conflict between the two companies dates from November 2021. It relates both to “the lifting of the barrier” demanded by the hotel, a case already judged at first instance in Tiassale, and on appeal in Abidjan, but also to ” the yoke of an area of ??0.32 hectare”, at the request of the banana production company.

This other case will be judged in first instance on May 23 in Tiassalé.

Source: Agence Ivoirienne de Presse