The Tunisian Walid Arem has taken over the famous “Ledger Plaza” hotel in the capital of the Central African Republic, Bangui, owned by the Libyan state, in addition to managing two other hotels in the Malian capital Bamako and a seaside resort in Tunisia, owned by the Libyan Arab African Investment Company “Laico”.
Walid Arem, who was famous in his native Tunisia as the vice-president of the Tunisian Esperance Sports Club, one of the largest football clubs in the country, was playing a very different kind of games in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. Arem, co-manager of the family holding Arem Group, which owns four hotels in Djerba and Hammamet in Tunisia, in early March on the “Ledger Plaza”, the most luxurious establishment in Bangui, owned by the Libyan Arab African Investment Company “Laico”.
Ledger Plaza is the fourth establishment owned by “Laico” company that passed into Arem’s hands, which had previously seized two of the three units it owned in Bamako in late 2020 under the same conditions, namely the “L’Amitié” Hotel, which is one of the main five-star hotels in the Malian capital, “Al-Farouq” Hotel, a five-star hotel located on the banks of the Niger River, was renamed Meridiana.
These hotels are now managed by the “Granada Hotels”, an entity controlled by Arem and his cousin, Mohamed Chabchoub. In the middle of 2021, the Arem-Chabchoub tandem took over the 300-room Laico Hotel, which is now named “Blue Marine Hotel & Thalasso” in the Tunisian seaside resort of Yasmine Hammamet.
He added that Libyan officials tried to regain control by replacing Ziyed Khalifa, the managing director of “Laico RCA” of the Central African Republic, who was appointed in 2014, at a time when two rival governments were fighting for power in Libya, and the appointment of “Khaled Al-Mufatrich” who was already Chairman of the Board of Directors of the “Ledger Plaza Maya Maya” in Brazzaville. Ziyed Khalifa, who has good relations with the Central African government, did not leave quietly and succeeded on several occasions in preventing the arrival of Libyan diplomats and representatives of “Laiko” to Bangui.
The re-launch of “Ledger Plaza” will not be an easy task for Arem, who intends to manage it directly in light of the explosive political situation in Central Africa, and he must also find a way to reach the hotel to the main global hotel reservation platforms, such as Booking.com, which in recent years has not provided Laico hotels for fear of violating international sanctions on many Libyan assets abroad since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011.
Adapted from Africa Intelligence