Covid-19: Hotels used for quarantine targeted by extortionists -Army Chief

Hoteliers told not to pay ‘third parties’

There had been several attempts to extort money from hotels authorised to quarantine persons arriving from overseas, Army Commander General Shavendra Silva said on Tuesday (12).

The Army Chief, who is also the Head of the National Operation Centre for Prevention of COVID-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO), in addition to being the Chief of Defence Staff assured hotel owners/hoteliers/ hotel executives that they would be protected. The meeting was held at the NOCPCO.

Gen. Silva said that they had been able to thwart several such attempts after the second Covid-19 outbreak in Oct last year.

The Army Chief emphasized that hotels shouldn’t pay anyone to secure business. “What we want is to get those arrivals a fair deal with decent meals, full care and accommodation at the lowest rate possible,” Gen. Silva said.

The Army Chief thanked the management of Hotel Dolphin who offered their hotels free of charge for public servants, tri servicemen and other stakeholders for quarantine purposes. “Of course, the Hotel Citrus also offered their premises but we used only the offer of Hotel Dolphin during March-April in the early stages.”

The Army Chief said that the Jetwing group was generous to quarantine a group of 44 students at our request allocating 44 rooms during the ongoing second wave.

Gen. Silva provided telephone numbers of selected officers to be contacted if attempts were made to extort money (SF)