KABUL (SW) – The Ministry of Information and Culture has said that the Kabul Sareena Hotel owes the Ministry $ 168 million for non-payment of rent.
The ministry officials said at a press conference here on Wednesday that it has appointed a team to investigate this debt.
At a meeting with hotel owners, the interim head of the Ministry of Information and Culture, Taher Zuhair, asked the Kabul Sareena management to pay back the debt.
Kabul Serena Hotel is one of the largest hotels in Afghanistan, which was established in the heart of the capital in 2005 with an investment of $ 35 million.
Zabihullah Ehsan, head of the hotels’ corporation, told the meeting that the Kabul Serena Hotel owes the Ministry of Information and Culture $ 168 million for non-payment of rent since 2010. According to the MoIC, Kabul Sareena was exempted from rent for the first five years of inception, but since then it has indebted itself with $ 168 million
Sefatullah Waziri, the financial manager of the Kabul Sareena, said that so far they have paid $ 32 million to the Ministry of Information and Culture and owe only $ 100 million to the ministry. He stressed that the hotel was exempt from paying taxes for ten years, and that the Ministry of Information and Culture had deposited $ 416,000 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 Sareena and Da Afghanistan Bank, which did not happen and the hotel suffered.
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