History Of Monal Restaurant in Islamabad Pakistan

History Of Monal Restaurant

ISLAMABAD The stirs created by the notorious Siza Foods leasing saga have hardly settled down when another mega corruption scandal has surfaced.
Exclusively available with TheNation, the copy of a lease agreement signed between Capital Development Authority (CDA) and a blue-eyed contractor during the tenure of Kamran Lashari as Chairman CDA contains endless revelations of blatant violations of laws.

According to details, Monal Restaurant, located at Gokina Moor Pir Sohawa, was leased out to Luqman Ali Afzal of Ze Grill Restaurants, a Lahore based food chain, at Rs 3.
12 million per year (Rs 2.
60 per month).

The contract was shown to be for 15 years but most interestingly, the contract allows the lease to be renewed on the 'desire of lessee for as many years, before the expiry of its term, at nominal conditions.
Para 47 of the agreement states, If on the expiry of the initial period of lease, the lessee shall be desirous of getting renewal of the lease, the lessee shall be entitled to a renewal of the lease, for another term of fifteen (15) years of this lease agreement before sixty (60) days of the expiry of existing lease agreement.
Instead of envisaging bidding process after the expiry of contracts term, the CDA secretively leased out the restaurant for 30 years.

Despite that CDAs prior approvals are sought and additional fees are required to be paid for additional constructions at any given piece of land, even for private residences across the Capital, the benefits extended to the lessee in the signed contract are unprecedented and distinguished.
Approximately 1.
5 kanal of place lying unutilised below the general car parking area will also be in possession of lessee and he will utilise this place to construct a 2-storey tree house.
The lessee will be allowed to enjoy this place without any extra rent, however, the lessor will not help in anyway to build this small structure financially, para 19 of the agreement states.

The contract further states that CDA will give all the NOCs and other approvals without any cost.
The lessee will obtain from the proper authorities, where necessary, the requisite sanctions/NOCs and comply with all rules, regulations, and requirements of the concerned authorities, therefore, all NOCs (No Objection Certificates) to be given by the lessor/CDA to the lessee will be without any charges/costs para 23 provides.
CDAs kindness does not end here.
During the period of lease, if the lessee feels that he is running short of space he will be allowed to add small terraces.
However, total area of these terraces should not increase the biggest existing terrace, the contract says.
As mentioned earlier, the agreement entitles the Ze Grill Restaurants all these and several other perks and privileges free of charges.

The bidding process for award of this contract was also controversial.
Renowned food companies such as Rahat Bakers, Hanif Rajput, Greens Hotels and others were dropped on one pretext or the another and less capable parties were given highest points on technical proposal.
Roughly, over Rs 180 million were incurred on the Monal Restaurant project but CDA reportedly manipulated the figures and showed the expenditure at only Rs 70 million.