Pakistan Railways Chief Executive Officer (CEO) JavedAnwar Bubak has disclosed that Royal Palm Golf & Country Club(RPGCC) has been renamed as Pakistan Railways Golf and Country Club.
“All services will be available to members very soon except for illegal substances,” he said.
Illegal substances refer to the sale of alcohol at the clubs ‘Palmers Lounge’ where alcohol was sold to members on cash only basis.
In an exclusive interview with Pakistan Today on Tuesday, he further revealed that all employees of the previous RPGCC would be retained by the new management except for the top brass who are close to the previous owners of the club.
Talking about the fate of members, he said the Pakistan Railways has written a letter to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for recovery of membership fee which was about Rs 1.3 million each. “We have sympathy for the club members but we can’t offer them anything more than that right now. We are trying to resolve their issue amicably,” he held. No clear decision has been made as yet vis-à-vis members, he added.
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As far as the legal standing of the recent seizure of the club is concerned, he said that the private owners had failed on various occasions to fulfil the promises made to Pakistan Railways when the land was leased to make the club.
Apart from its financial obligations in the form of annual fee’s, the club had also not fulfilled its promise of constructing a five-star hotel on the premises, the revenue from which was to be shared with Pakistan Railways, he added.
It has been further learnt that during the raid conducted last week on Friday 24thJune, an abundance of alcohol was confiscated from the clubs ‘Palmers Lounge’. The whereabouts of the confiscated liquor are however unknown.