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Two hotels reportedly used to accommodate guests and athletes during the 2023 African Games, for which the state paid millions, cannot be traced, according to the Auditor-General’s report.
The report stated that the hotels, Alphabet and Swiss Ghana, were booked through an intermediary company, JDK Travel and Tours, but could not be “independently identified or confirmed as registered hotel establishments.”
Further checks, the Auditor-General said, revealed that SWISS Hotels is the previous name for Alisa Hotel (Swiss Spirit Hotel & Suites), which already had a contract with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the provision of hotel accommodation for guests and athletes for the 13th African Games.
The two hotels were part of five others reportedly used to accommodate DR Congo, Senegal, and their officials at the 13th African Games for which the state spent GHS 18.9 million.
The audit report, however, did not indicate the exact amount the two ‘ghost hotels’ were paid.
President John Dramani Mahama in October 2025 directed the Audit Service to do a forensic audit of the continental sports event, which Ghana hosted in 2024 and was fraught with allegations of financial impropriety.
The Fourth Estate in March 2025 raised questions about some of the expenditure incurred in the hosting of the games, which, according to the Auditor-General’s report, cost the public purse more than GHS 2.2 billion.
Unqualified company
According to the report, the service provider, JDK Travel and Tours Limited, was registered on December 14, 2022 and had no license from the Ghana Tourism Authority to provide accommodation services. The company does not manage, operate, nor own any accommodation facility directly. However, it was awarded $1.5 million contract (the equivalent of a little over GHS 18.9 million).
Describing JDK Travel and Tours as an ‘unqualified contractor’, the report said the payment of GHS 18.5 million to “a non-specialized intermediary represents a lack of value for money and exorbitant ‘middleman’ markups.”
The state auditors also took issue with the cost of rooms the company booked.
“Our review, supported by market research, indicated that the room rates charged by the intermediary, JDK Travel and Tours, were excessively higher than the official room rates published and charged by the respective hotels.”
The report noted that as a result of excessive overpricing, the Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS) and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) lost a total amount of $840,000.00 (GHS 10,080,000), as 500 rooms (250 standard rooms and 250 executive rooms) were used for a total of 21 days.
Company’s response
The Fourth Estate reached out to JDK Travel and Tours several times between Monday and Wednesday seeking a response, including the locations of the Swiss and Alphabet hotels. However, although the company repeatedly promised to respond, no response was provided.
Management response
However, the management response accompanying the audit report noted that JDK was initially not part of the arrangement of the provision of hotel accommodation.
“This arrangement was made as a stop-gap to address emergency accommodation shortage. Most of the hotels the LOC initially engaged declined to offer the services due to the ministry indebtedness during the previous games,” the report said. “JDK was the only company capable and willing to provide pre-financing services to the LOC/Ministry.”
The report said the International Technical Officers (ITOS) / National Technical Officers (NTOs) per the protocol agreement, were supposed to have been put in three or four- star hotels.
“Therefore, the Local Organising Committee was compelled to immediately arrange to accommodate them and provide similar services which three- or four-star hotels would have provided them.”
Further justifying the cost, the response said the arrangement reduced the cost of rooms per day as three and four-star hotels were charging between USD 250 and USD 350 per day.
“The hotels provided only accommodation while JDK had to provide ancillary services such as laundry, lunch and dinner,” it said.
These explanations notwithstanding, the Auditor-General has recommended that the former Minister of Youth and Sports, Minister Ussif; the former Chief Director of the Ministry, William Kartey and the Chairman of the Local Organising Committee of the tournament should be sanctioned under Section 92 of the Public Procurement Act.
The law states: “any person who contravenes any provision of this Act commits an offence and where no penalty has been provided for the offence, the person is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding 1000 penalty units or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years or to both.”
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