Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) will verify Grand Hayat Hotel affectees’ claims before they are compensated.

A list of 240 buyers was earlier submitted in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) by the owner of the Grand Hyatt project.

A meeting in this regard was held on Friday at the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD). It was chaired by CADD secretary. The Capital Development Authority’s (CDA) Planning and Design member and the Estate member as well as the FIA director general were also present.

CDA officials informed the meeting that they were unable to proceed in the matter regarding calculation of compensation because they did not have the complete record of the buyers.

They said that the CDA had requested all those allotted apartments in the Grand Hyatt through newspaper advertisements in April to contact the CDA for claiming compensation.

“However, only a few buyers have contacted the civic body so far. How can we calculate the impact of whole scam when we don’t even have the required details? Verifying the authenticity of claimants is also a challenge,” they said.

In response, it was decided by the committee that the FIA would collect and verify the details of buyers as the investigating agency was already probing the matter. It will check the authenticity of claims and payments made by them.

The 99-year lease for a luxury hotel and 37-storey twin residential towers next to the Convention Centre was auctioned in 2005. However, it was cancelled by CDA in July, 2016. The owner challenged the cancellation in the IHC. However, the appeal was rejected.

While dismissing all applications moved by BNP (Private) Limited and other stakeholders, Justice Athar Minallah had directed CDA and the federal government to protect the rights of affectees by compensating them.

The buyers include Imran Khan, Nasirul Mulk, Salman Bashir, Ahmed Mukhtar, Feryal Ali Gauhar, Jahangir Khan, Haris Khan Toru, Rashid Khan, Shazia Hafeez Shaikh, Muhammad Hashim Khan, Dr Asad Zia, Shiekh Amir Waheed, Shahzad Waseem, Muhammad Asif Sandila, Mehboobul Haque, Naseem Zehra Ikhlaq, Khawaja Muhammad Asad and Kashmala Tariq.

Sources privy to the developments said that most of the buyers were reluctant to contact the CDA because they had purchased their properties through unauthorised and benami transactions using black money.

“It will be difficult for them to prove the purchase of properties in their own names and details of payments. Even genuine buyers did not show the real price on papers to save themselves from paying taxes,” an official told Daily Times.

Published in Daily Times, September 16^th 2017.