Govt sends letters to Hotel Hyatt and Regency requesting information on all financial transactions

KATHMANDU: The Hotel Hyatt Regency management has been contacted by the government for comment after it was claimed that they had broken the terms of their contract by leasing land.

The Hotel Hyatt Regency and Taragaon Development Committee have received letters from the Ministry of Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, according to officials. The ministry has questioned the hotel authority as to why the land lease agreement shouldn’t be annulled and the uses changed to something else.

The government and the ICTC of the Saraf Group had an agreement in place that allowed the group to invest Rs 1.50 billion. Through its influence, the group has increased its shares to almost twice the agreed-upon amount.

As a result, the government’s interest, which was 39 percent (or a total of 4.275 million shares) in 1992, has decreased to only nine percent. The majority of the shares in the losing business are now held by local businessman Ram Lal Shrestha and his family, as well as the companies in which they have investments, and private partners Radeshyam Saraf and his family, who are from India. .

The hotel management has come under fire for failing to keep accurate financial records pertaining to payments made to the board members and management totaling Rs 381.20 million. Only Rs 72.30 million worth of dividends have been paid to the government over the last three decades by the hotel. .

The government has additionally requested information from the relevant authority regarding the foreign investors who are rumored to have contributed an additional Rs. 950.8 million to the hotel’s investment.