The owners of Grand Hyatt Hotel Islamabad have fled after collecting Rs 5 billion from various clients including Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan, officials said. Briefing a subcommittee of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), here on Wednesday, the officials of the Auditor General Pakistan (AGP) asked who would help those people who invested their hard-earned money in the abovementioned project.
The meeting of the parliamentary panel was held under the chairmanship of Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed. The panel expressed serious concerns over the revelations saying that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has failed to implement the bylaws because serious financial irregularities are emerging in every mega project. In July 2016, the CDA cancelled the 99-year lease of the land to the BNP (Private) Limited for violations of the building bylaws and the lease agreement.
"The CDA on July 29, 2016 cancelled the lease for (a) execution of lease and construction of the project by an entity which never participated in the bidding process; (b) transfer of possession to third parties by the builder without obtaining completion certificate/permission from the authority; (c) the plot was not utilised as yet for a hotel, an integral part of the project; and (d) the officials of the authority have facilitated the builder to violate rules and regulations causing a huge loss to the authority."
The affected people including Imran Khan challenged the cancellation of the lease of a piece of land to BNP (Private) Limited by the CDA which was meant for the five-star Grand Hyatt Hotel and residential apartments. The IHC single-member bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah in March 2017 upheld the CDA decision.
The committee member Mian Abdul Mannan said that Imran Khan has neither mentioned his Grand Hyatt apartment with Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) nor in his tax returns. The committee also discussed sector I-16 and sector I-17 land development scam. Briefing the panel, the audit authorities said that land price in the above sectors was Rs 250,000 per kanal which the CDA purchased at Rs 850,000 per kanal.
Mian Abdul Mannan said that as per CDA bylaws, the civic body has to compensate small land holders first, while in above case the authority paid Rs 6 billion to the son of Haji Nawaz Khokhar and Malik Riaz in one-go instead of compensating small land holders. The committee handed over the matter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for further investigations with directives to complete the probe within two months, so that the responsible officials can be fixed.
The CDA officials told the panel that the authority has restricted the masses from selling/purchasing of any piece of land in Ghori Town and E-11 sector. Mian Abdul Mannan said that the sale/purchase of land in Ghori Town and E-11 continued for a long period where the poor have invested their hard-earned money but the CDA didn't take any action. Now, when the people have built their homes there and fourms such as PAC take action, the CDA is putting restrictions. He said those allowed sale/purchase of land in such areas must be brought to justice.
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