Karzai retirement home turned into guesthouse

KABUL (Pajhwok): President Hamid Karzai on Thursday suggested the lavish building, where he was supposed to live after leaving office, be used as a government guesthouse for foreign visitors and officials.

A statement from the Presidential Palace said the luxurious building was inaugurated by President Karzai during a special ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, Karzai said he was supposed to live in the beautiful building after his retirement as president under the Constitution

However, the outgoing president said it would be better if the building was used for foreign guests.

Ending his speech, Karzai welcomed the Harirod construction company that designed the building and constructed it on a higher standard.

Programs’ coordinator at the Office of Administrative Affairs, Eng Mohammad Gul Hamid said construction work on the building was launched in May 2013.

Karzai was due to settle down in the vast new property very close to the Presidential Palace amid speculation that he intends to play an active role in the country’s politics when he leaves office.

But he has changed his mind and decreed that the property would be more suitable as an official guesthouse for foreign dignitaries and other visitors travelling to Kabul to meet the next president.

Karzai, 56, has been packed and ready for weeks to move out of the presidential palace, where he has lived since coming to power after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

His spokesman Aimal Faizai has said the president would leave as soon as the result of the election was announced and the new president declared.

mds/ma

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