Moinul Haq Syed
The Malam Jabba case has received a lot of attention in the last couple of weeks. The saga started prior to elections, when the Supreme Court took notice of the lease of 275 acres of land for the redevelopment of the Malam Jabba Resort (MJR) on the same place and in the same manner as existed prior to the Taliban takeover of Swat.
MJR was unfortunately destroyed during the insurgency in Swat – incidentally, one Irshad Ahmed who was responsible for destroying the resort, has had his death sentence confirmed by the Army Chief yesterday.
In 2014, the KP government advertised to redevelop MJR on the same pattern and on the same land as it previously existed – one Hotel and a chairlift/ski slope. The NAB action on the MJR stems from a wrongful belief that the land is either forest land or a new location on a forest land. It is neither. The KP government leased out the same land for the same purposes as had been in existence since the inception of MJR. Unambiguous evidence exists that the land actually belongs to the Tourism Corporation KP.
Calling this either forest land or Protected Forest is not only wrong but sets a dangerous precedent where government departments (e.g. Forest Dept KP) becomes a land grabber. One wonders whether someone has asked the Forest Dept to establish its title to the said land through documentary evidence?
On the other hand, there is an unfortunate situation that the investor has found himself in. Having spent over 150 crore rupees to rebuild the resort to better specifications and quality – they face the wrath of NAB.
As in the above case of land grabbing by Forest Dept, this exercise sends a very bad signal to investors that once you’ve invested huge amounts in a public private partnership project, be prepared to face criminal charges emanating from wrongful assumptions – whether created by NAB or through infighting by govt departments. If the government wishes to promote tourism (or any other industry for that matter) through public private partnership projects, it must raise its own standards of working and then give full legal protection to those who put their time and money into projects where governments are unable to do so.
