Plan ready to convert PC hotel into US consulate

[Beskar]

Plan ready to convert PC hotel into US consulate

By Zulfiqar Ali
Tuesday, 25 Aug, 2009


Eleven people, including staffers of the UNHCR, were killed and over 50 wounded when a mini-truck loaded with explosives was detonated on the premises of the Pearl Continental in Peshawar on June 10. –Photo by AFP

DAWN.COM | Metropolitan | Plan ready to convert PC hotel into US consulate

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PESHAWAR: A plan to turn the city’s lone five-star hotel, which faced a terrorist attack in June, into the US consulate has almost been finalised as the hotel management has packed up its many things and sent some 300 employees home, sources said.

‘We have been informed that the company has been running into losses. Therefore most of the employees working on contract, daily wages or regular were terminated a few days ago,’ said one of the affected employees.

Sources said about 350 employees had been affected, many of whom had been working in the hotel for 25 years. The terminated employees have been given one-month advance salary. Before the bombing, over 400 employees were working in the hotel.

The sources said some of the regular employees had been transferred to other stations.

The hotel’s management could not be contacted for comments despite repeated attempts. Earlier, the hotel management had stated that repair and renovation work would take almost one year and they could not say about its future.

‘We are sure that it will no more be a hotel. We have been conveyed to seek another job,’ said a hotel employee. The sources said some employees who had served in the hotel for more than 20 years were likely to go to the court against their termination.

Eleven people, including staffers of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, were killed and over 50 wounded when a mini-truck loaded with explosives was detonated on the premises of the Pearl Continental in Peshawar on June 10. Repair work is still underway in the hotel and over 50 rooms and lobbies have been repaired.

Well-placed sources said that before the bomb explosion, US experts had visited the hotel site and made some soil tests to hire the place for the US consulate complex.

The hotel management has virtually abandoned the place for Americans.

It is, however, rumoured that the Pakistani establishment is reluctant to allow the US to have its lodging and boarding facility in the neighbourhood of the Corps Commander House and the PAF Golf Club.

At present, the US consulate is functioning in a rented house in the Cantonment area and the main road passing in front of the compound has been closed permanently.

Under the proposed consulate plan, offices of the United States Assistance for International Development (USAID) and its partners will be accommodated in the new complex.

Sources said US officials had visited the hotel many times and the deal had been almost finalised.

 

[TsAr]

Due to bad law and order situation in peshawar there are very few tourists who visit the city thats why the hotel was in loss....