Environmental Health Officers of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) have close down the Kwame Nkrumah Circle branch of Las Palmas restaurant, for violating sanitation bye laws.
Director of Public Health at the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, Florence Kuukyi, who directed the closure of the popular eatery, on Wednesday after an inspection cited unsanitary conditions under which the food sold was being prepared, workers without medical certificate, unavailability of a toilet facility designated for male and female.
The closure notice takes effect from Thursday, July 22, 2021, until steps have been taken to correct the sanitation breaches.
“We are closing it down. First, because of the conditions under which they cook and sell the food. Look at the net above us, it had been overtaken by dust and cobwebs, and this is where they cook the food. So anything at all could fall into the food, and no one will know”, Florence Kuukyi noted.
“Also, contrary to the AMA Bye-Laws 2017, they don’t have a toilet facility here. Some of them sleep in this building. It’s not far to think that when they are pressed, they do it in polythene bags and fly them outside”, she added.
The supervisor at the eatery, who identified herself as Aunty Hannah, explained why none of the workers had a medical certificate.
“When they did it, I was not here. I was in Kumasi, so I think that it is at our Head Office at Abeka. So I will have to call them to bring it”, she initially explained.
However, it emerged that the workers are new staff who have not taken the tests yet.