Thursday July 23, 2020
Kabul (BNA) Leading by Mohammad Tahir Zaheer Acting Minister of Information and Culture, extraordinary meeting of high council of hotel companies was held for 100m Afghanis non-payment of Kabul Serena Hotel rent on Tuesday.
According to BNA report, Acting Minister of Information and Culture called on the hotel runners to pay the debts.
In the meeting, Zabihullah Ihsan, head of hotels’ corporation said, the Kabul Serena hotel's debts go back to 2010 and is totally 100 million Afghanis.
The Kabul Serena hotel was rented to its current owner after reconstruction and renovation in 2005 for 30 years. Under the contract, the landholder would not pay from 2005 to 2010. But it is owed 100 million Afghanis since 2016,' the ministry of culture, Ehsan added.
Sefatullah Waziri, the financial manager of the Kabul Serena, said that so far they have paid 32 million Afghanis to the Ministry of Information and Culture and owe only 100 million Afghanis to the ministry. He stressed that the hotel was exempt from paying taxes for ten years, and that the Ministry of Finance Afghanistan had deposited 416 million Afghanis in taxes from the bank's account in the past year.
The financial manager of the Kabul Serena Hotel said that according to the contract, the government should have provided the hotel with control over Zar Negar Park and the road between Kabul Serena and Da Afghanistan Bank, which did not happen and the hotel suffered.
Finally, Acting Minister of Information and Culture after hearing both sides’ reports demanded to resolve the issue among themselves; otherwise a committee will be established for assessing the issue and present the result to relevant authorities.
M.A.Ansari
