Buchanan, Grand Bassa – The Management of Hotel Buchanan has accused Prince Fadi Awar, Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Beach in Buchanan, for allegedly connecting wire directly from their current to his facilities.
Emmanuel Wragbo, Public Relations Officer, for the hotel said the alleged power theft has been happening for over 10 months; adding that they noticed the illegal connection due to the huge burning of fuel and the repair of the generators constantly.
“We have been observing for the past time but were not opportune to notice this until the night of the 23rd of December 2021 when the Hotel generator went off and all the lights and instruments of said beach went off instantly,” Wragbo claimed.
He mentioned that the Management of Hotel Buchanan requested the generator man to turn the generator off six different times to see whether the Atlantic beach lights and Music will go off instantly too during those six turn-offs.
According to him, the generator was turned off those six times, six times, Atlantic Beach went off, too. “When the team went to check between Prince’s residence and the hotel, an illegal connection was seen, and pictures were taken by the Crime Services Division [of the Liberia National Police] for evidence purpose,” he added.
Wragbo furthered that prior to the alleged theft discovery, Awar had asked Hotel Buchanan’s operational manager, Cyrus Dutch Weljue, to connect his facility to the hotel’s electricity grid in return to pay him some cash and that Weljue had declined the offer.
He denied report that Hotel Buchanan’s owern, Mr. Bassan Sidani, son, who manages the hotel, had ordered the police to closedown Atlantic Beach.
“By law, no one persons or citizen has the right to order state security to close down anyone’s business or home,” he added.
However, Prince Awar has denied connecting his facilities lines to the power of Hotel Buchanan.
Atlantic Beach’s Chief Executive officer told this newspaper: “Their allegation is false and misleading. Emmanuel Wragbo called me, and I told him I knew nothing about illegal connection of lines.”
Awar mentioned that the matter was taken to the police station in his absence but has promised to return to Buchanan on Thursday of this week since he was out of the city at the time of the incident.
“The police contacted me on Sunday while heading for Church, I told them I will be in Buchanan Thursday,” he added.
Awar alleged that he was informed that the police allegedly shut down his businesses on Christmas Day after he had spoken with them on the phone.
“Upon hearing the news, I called the police Commander and my place got reopened.”
FrontPageAfrica has gathered that the investigation has commenced at the Liberian National Police Headquarters in Buchanan.
When contacted, Police Commander Williams Johnson said he didn’t order the closure of the beach.
He told reporters through his communications officer that the investigation is ongoing but they at no time shut down the beach.