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Govt. spent $ 90 mn on  half-completed Grand Hyatt

09 Nov 2022

 
  • Funds were taken from SLIC, EPF, and Litro Gas, says Arundika
  • $ 30 mn obtained by Govt. as a loan
  • Now plans to invite investors to complete project
  By Imesh Ranasinghe  The Government has spent $ 90 million on the construction of the Grand Hyatt hotel in Colombo with funds obtained from the Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation (SLIC), Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF), and Litro Gas Lanka Ltd., stated State Minister of Urban Development and Housing  Arundika Fernando. Speaking in Parliament yesterday (8), he said that a loan of $ 30 million has been availed of by the Government for the construction of the hotel, which has been delayed since 2016. The State Minister said that the project needs another $ 90 million to complete construction. He proposed that investors be invited to complete the construction by investing $ 120 million out of the original investment of $ 270 million required by the Board of Investment (BOI), where $ 30 million will be used for the payment of debt and $ 90 million for the construction of the rest of the hotel, in order to start the operations and management at the hotel as quickly as possible. In 2020, it was revealed that the delay in completing the construction of the Grand Hyatt hotel project during the 2015-2019 period had cost Rs. 31.8 billion in taxpayer funds, comprising Rs. 1.8 billion in damages and Rs. 30 billion in cost overruns.  The hotel consists of 48 floors, 458 guest rooms, 100 serviced apartments, 12 specialty restaurants, seven meeting rooms, a 1,000-pax ballroom, gym, pool, spa, and in-house laundry. The hotel covers approximately 1.2 million sq. ft., and the advertisement run by the BOI in 2022 estimated the construction of the hotel to be completed by December 2022, with the partial commissioning of 200 rooms by December 2021.  Moreover, it was noted that some supplier companies have initiated legal proceedings over the matter, and it has been decided that the contractor Sino Lanka (Pvt.) Ltd. shall pay a sum of approximately Rs. 1.8 billion in compensation, while the project, which was originally planned to be completed at an estimated cost of Rs. 30 billion, was re-estimated to a cost of around Rs. 60 billion. As of 2020, the construction at the hotel was completed by 70%. 


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