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In the nineties, the Hotel Nippon was one of one of the main places in Santiago where Japanese businessmen and tourists stayed. Located on Barón Pierre de Coubertin street, in Providencia, and with 36 rooms, the enclosure, at the end of 2020, is in a controversy with the State. Its owners accuse that the site is in a difficult financial situation due to the fact that the Ministry of Health owes $ 240 million since June of this year, when its premises were used as a health residence due to the Covid pandemic, being one of the first hotels in be cleared for it in March.
In conversation with The Third PM, Patricia Vidal (62) – owner of the hotel and wife of Masamoto Saotome (71) – tells how they have had to overcome the health crisis and foresees a difficult 2021 for the tourism industry due to mobility restrictions. He also questions the former Undersecretary of Health, Arturo Zúñiga, with whom they made the agreement to collaborate as a health residence.
In addition, he assures that due to the tourism situation and the millionaire debt that is still pending, the future of the hotel could be in jeopardy next year. “They have not yet begun to collect the loans we ask for and we don’t have much space left. I don’t know if we are going to hold out for three more months, but we cannot continue in this situation ”, he warns.
When did you sign the contract with the Ministry of Health to receive Covid patients?
We operate with the Public Market and we were already well damaged after the social crisis in October. This arises in one of those conversations in which we were looking for clients. In March we called them and they told us that they were going to need sanitary residences. We were super available to do it. They told us that we had to meet a series of requirements and we started without being clear about the rates and without having a contract in between, because we thought it was going to be all for the Public Market, where we had always worked with the government. But given the contingency, we had to make a direct contract. They put conditions on us with very low prices, but it was that or nothing and we accepted it. We hire staff. Equipment and clinical material in that minute. The masks -for example- went up in price from $ 1,500 a box to $ 30,000. We buy special clothes and hire a clinical laundry. The contracts were signed in May.
What clauses does the contract have?
It is a generic contract with all small hotels. It did demand many things that a normal hotel did not have. They demanded that the meals go to the room, because the people who arrived could not leave. They also asked that the laundry be clinical and specialized in disinfection. The contracts required that we give two to three liters of drinking water to patients. The contract said that it was paid in 30 days.
How long has it been since the last payment?
The first invoice was issued the first days of May, which was the period of March and April. It had to be paid in June and we are in December and we have not received that payment. We work from March to June. We attended about 900 people a month, and after they removed this issue of sanitary residences from former Undersecretary of Health Arturo Zúñiga, we had to make a new contract with the Seremi de Salud. In June they lowered our prices even more and on July 24 they told us that it was all over.
How much more did they ask them to lower their prices?
At first, the original quote established an amount of $ 90 thousand pesos a day per passenger. Then they set the amount at $ 57 thousand and told us that they were going to lease the entire hotel, but when they sent the contract in May they changed the conditions. At that time, they told us that they would pay only for the busy. Later, when the seremi arrived in July, they lowered the amount to $ 50,000. As Hotel Nippon, we cleaned every day with a double shift. Plus the reception and security people that we had had to be there 24 hours and seven days a week. We had a lot of people hired for this. We prepared meals four times a day, even by medical order they asked us for special diets for pregnant women or chronically ill patients in addition to ethnic foods. They were prepared daily and served in the room according to sanitary protocols. We heard stories from patients and medical staff that in other places they cleaned once a week or left plastic trays with their 4 meals a day in the morning, for example. It was super complicated to operate. We had about 40 people working.
With whom were they assigned to speak with the Minsal ?; What have they responded to?
We signed the contract with Arturo Zúñiga and he never answered. He did not agree to give us a meeting by Lobby Law. He signed the contract and was responsible for this issue. He never answered us anything, nor did he want to receive us. I called him and he never answered his cell phone. I mailed his secretary and assistant. We went there. We try to look it up a lot of times. I imagine that if he signed the contract, he should have stood up, but since we are a small company, they don’t care. That can not be. Today we are talking with Minsal’s Head of Budgets and Finance, Andrea Hidalgo. She also stopped answering us. The problem is that you go there and they receive you, but they tell you: I have nothing to do. So you never know which hands you are in. You also don’t know who can help you. We even wrote to Minister Enrique Paris.
How much is the amount owed by the Minsal to the hotel?
It’s $ 200 million, plus VAT. They are about $ 240 million. We issued two invoices and had to pay all VAT against nothing. So, there is still a balance that we have not invoiced. We have no money to pay VAT. Today they owe us four months: March, April, May and June. Today we are very complicated because we finance ourselves with credits and we have not sold anything due to the pandemic. In June we filed a claim with the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic and in its opinion it ordered the Ministry to pay the pending bills and we have not had a response. It gives them all the same.
Do you know of other hotels that are in the same situation?
Yes, almost all the hotels that were sanitary residences are in the same situation. They are small hotels. I read in the newspaper that the Radisson Hotel and Espacio Riesco reached an agreement. They are great entrepreneurs.
Will they take legal action against the Minsal?
We do not want to do it, because it would delay this issue further. You trust the state and the government when you provide your services and sign a contract, but now we are not ruling it out. We don’t want to get to that instance. We want to solve it sooner. We have nothing or a meeting scheduled to solve the problem. They came several times to inspect us. They came from the General Secretariat of the Presidency and the Comptroller’s Office. The Minsal knows that we were a sanitary residence and it has not paid us.
What if they don’t get paid soon ?; Is the viability of the hotel at risk?
Yes, because with Phase 2 and with the border closed, the tourism industry is on the ground. We are in a critical situation. What a can that we have to go bankrupt because the government did not fulfill its commitments. If the situation continues this disastrous, we would have to take very drastic measures next year. We had to fire a lot of people when the issue of health residences ended, paying the corresponding settlements and that was increasing our debt. I don’t know if we are going to hold out for three more months, but we cannot continue in this situation.
