The Malam Jabba affair

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) – which has a government in the centre as well as in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces – has continually been pledging to help develop tourism as an industry in the country.

Prime Minister Imran Khan has repeatedly said that tourism alone can help repay Pakistan’s debts and that Switzerland earns $60 billion to $80 billion alone from tourism despite being half in size to the country’s scenic north western areas.

However, the PTI’s provincial government in the KP is practically doing nothing to help protect the investment some groups have already made in the sector.

It was in 2014 – a year after the PTI formed its first government in the KP – when a big business group decided to try its luck in the tourism sector in the province and made the biggest tourism related investment in Pakistan.

The group signed a contract with the government for reconstructing a ski resort and hotel at the Malam Jabba area of district Swat in a bid to boost tourism in the scenic valley which had witnessed a long insurgency and military operation.

The group took on lease a tract of 275 acres on the beautiful snow-capped hills and spent billions of rupees to establish an international-style, world-class resort.  It was a 100% private project but the PTI government continued to take its credit.

The provincial government, however, failed to help the group erect a boundary wall round the resort which was necessary to provide a sense of security to the tourists.

The provincial government did give approval for constructing the wall but the project could not be materialized due to some government officials who allegedly worked in connivance with a local mafia.

Thus the multi-billion rupees project started becoming a failed investment right from the beginning. When the Malam Jabba project started facing problems, other people who had plans to invest in the tourism sector of the province also became wary.

According to sources, some people even in the ruling PTI were hand-in-glove with the local mafia in creating unrest among the common people of the Malam Jabba and inciting them against the ski resort management.

This mafia continues to create hurdles for the resort management and sometimes this interference also creates a law and order situation. This mafia has been using various tactics to force the resort management to abandon the project.

These tactics range from filing false first information reports (FIRs), vandalizing the main entrance of the resort and turning off the water supply to Pearl Continental Hotel at the resort, to demanding extortion money in return for water supply.

The mafia has also been printing and selling forged entry tickets to the resort; stealing valuables from its premises; constructing illegal structures in the jungle adjacent to it and making arrival of tourists difficult by encroaching on the roads leading to the resort.

Due to the provincial government’s negligence another project – located at a distance of some two kilometers from the resort – is also in shambles and the local mafia has caused great damage to its boundary walls, green fields and watchtowers.

Critics of the PTI claim that if the provincial government were serious in increasing prosperity in Swat and promoting tourism and investment in the area, it would have helped in constructing the boundary wall of the resort so that local and foreign tourists visiting the area might feel secure.

It can hardly be denied that if the PTI’s provincial government had taken the steps, more people would have invested in the tourism sector and the provincial economy would have received a boost. However, the PTI government in the province has apparently failed to fulfil its duty.

Interestingly, the Malam Jabba project lies in the constituency of KP Chief Minister Mahmood Khan.

The CM might play a crucial role in educating the people of the area that the management of the project has not arrived there as a colonial power to exploit their resources and that success of the project might open new opportunities not only for the local people but the entire province.

The scandal

The scandal came to the fore on January 7, 2018 when NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal declared it

“a glaring example of corruption and misuse of authority” and ordered an inquiry into it.

NAB’s KP chapter later converted the inquiry into an investigation.

In December 2018, the top graft buster – the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) – summoned K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan for investigation into irregularity in leasing land for the sports resort.

NAB grilled Mahmood about his alleged involvement in the scam as he was running the provincial ministry for sports during the last PTI’s first government in the K-P.

The anti-graft watchdog also interrogated Pervez Khattak, who served as the KP chief minister from 2013 till 2018, provincial minister Atif Khan and several bureaucrats

In March 2019, NAB declared that the contract of the Malam Jabba Resort Project was a mega fraud to grab costly land from the Forest Department and that the group was not eligible to get the project.

It declared that the KP government awarded the contract in violation of rules and regulations and even extended the due date for submitting tenders.

NAB probe revealed that the government had set neither any feasibility nor any technical, financial and prequalification criteria. The Tourism Department had sought tenders from experienced companies but the group that was granted the contract had apparently no experience.

However, in July 2021, NAB disposed of the case without any further action. After a three-and-a-half year investigation, NAB decided to refer the matter to the KP chief secretary for an investigation into the “irregularities in the awarding of the contract”.