Driving for the hotel industry for seven years, he has spent half of those years in the service of his current employer, Monarch Hotel.

Last month, the driver, who requested anonymity, received 500 Br from service charge in May. His normal salary is 2,500 Br. This is especially tough since he supports his parents.

With 160 staff in eight departments, Monarch Hotel has also been serving breakfast, lunch and dinner to its employees. But the Hotel lifted the offer of breakfast, calling it too expensive.

Monarch has been continuing to pay basic salaries, but the service charge is no longer being collected. Since the pandemic, many hotels, including Monarch, have lost revenues and are taking other measures to keep their doors open.

It has been three months now since the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) arrived in Ethiopia, barging into and disrupting people's lives. It is even possible that the pandemic has struck a fatal blow to some operators in the hotel and tourism sector.

After Ethiopia reported the first case in mid-March, the hotel room occupancy rate slumped to below two percent, leading to average monthly losses of 35 million dollars in revenues.

Hoteliers are in between a rock and a hard place as to whether or not to keep their doors open in the hope of expecting customers and sustaining their employees.

The situation has pushed most of the hotels, which were forced to close doors or operate at reduced capacity, to lay off employees, give furloughs or cut salaries.

The driver described the situation as dismal.

"Even though we understand the current problem," he said, "we expected more from the hotel owners."

Monarch has been receiving a series of complaints from employees after the virus impacted the sector.

For the last several months, employees have been filing grievances on the decision of the management to the Federation of Hotel & Tourism Service under the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU).

The Hotel, which is operating at less than a seven percent occupancy rate, has cut off the service charge ever since the virus first started to harm the economy, the employee claims.

"They even took out the service charge print from the receipt but still charge customers 10pc on each order, and that money hasn't gone into our pockets since mid-March. It's going into the pockets of the owners," he said.

Yayirad Yemedew, marketing director of Monarch Hotel, admits that the Hotel has stopped collecting service charge since May 11.

"And we've increased the price of the food by 10pc. That's why," he said. "That made it possible to lift the service charge so that every waiter can get tipped by the customers."

"It's getting to the point where running this Hotel can't be sustained for more than two months even at this level of business," Yayirad told Fortune. "We understand the employees may be discontented with the service charge being lifted, but this measure was taken to keep our doors open."

Monarch is not the only hotel that is tangled up in this kind of drama. Swiss Inn Nexus Hotel, which recently cut the salary of employees by a minimum of 10pc and a maximum of 40pc, has also been bombarded with complaints from its staff.

"We've been taking leave every 15 days in rotation, and we work on the remaining days left from the month," said one employee who asked to remain anonymous. "This month I received 500 Br even though my salary was 1,200 Br."

The Hotel, which has 250 employees, refutes this claim.

This month, 40 employees who have stayed home did not get paid, according to Zena Dawit, deputy general manager of Dag Trading Plc, the mother company of Nexus Hotel.

"We've been waiting on the loan from banks," he said. "We decided to pay those who were working first."

Out of the total number of employees, 105 have taken their annual leave, while the remaining are still on duty.

"For employees finishing up their annual leave, we had only paid them for the days they worked," said Zena. "But now after a discussion with the board and management, we've decided to pay them the rest of the money."

In response to the downturn in the hotel and tourism sector for the last 12 weeks since the virus entered the country, the Addis Abeba Hotel Owners Trade Sectoral Association, which has 150 hotels under its wing supporting 18,000 employees, has been working with the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) to respond to the damage inflicted upon the sector, according to Biniyam Bisrat, chairman of the Association.

"However, the presumed soft loan from the government has not yet reached any of the hotels," Biniyam said. "Upon the declaration of the release of the soft loan, this has created a disagreement with employees, who think that hoteliers are withholding the loan after getting it, which is false."

After the discussion, the NBE decided to pledge a 3.3-billion-Br soft loan to the sector with a five percent interest rate and one-year maturity period for the next six months starting in May.

To partake in this loan, banks have to sign a Master Loan Agreement with the central bank. By this agreement, banks are expected to give the money to the sector first, and they will go back to the governing bank with the necessary guarantee document.

Even though the government had announced this stimulus package, bankers have yet to attend to the needs of the sector.

"This is an ordinary loan procedure and is just taking time," said Wondoessen Teshome, president of Enat Bank. "As long as the sector fulfills the terms and conditions, the money will be released soon."

The Ethiopian Hotel Professional Association, which disclosed that 14 hotel owners have started laying off employees, held a discussion with the Ministry of Culture & Tourism on the bailout cash injection last week.

"We've come to realise the issue lies with the money not being released to the hotel owners," said Leulseged Mesele, president of the Association. "The money is expected to be released for hotels soon, and we hope the hotel owners act accordingly."

When employees hear a stimulus package is released, they think its automatically in the accounts of the hoteliers, according to Haileleul Yilma, operational manager of Swiss Inn Nexus Hotel.

"This leads to a rough relationship with owners," said Haileleul.

Kaleb Hotel, located near Edna Mall, is another hotel that took the step of revising employee payments in May. The Hotel claims that the management had first discussed the revision of salaries and later on tabled it to the city's Labour & Social Affairs Bureau, which was then sent back for discussion with the workers as well.

"We selected worker representatives, and we discussed it with them," said Getabicha Dejene, deputy managing director of Kaleb Hotel. "There was some discontent with the original revision, and we redid it accordingly, so it was approved."

Employees of Kaleb Hotel, however, tell a different story than the management.

"They just called us to talk about the pandemic, and they didn't talk about the salary revisions," said one of the employees. "They just recorded our attendance."