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NAB probing Malam Jabba Ski Resort land lease case

By Our Correspondent
May 17, 2018

ISLAMABAD: The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is probing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government’s award of contact of establishing a ski resort and a five-star hotel in Malam Jabba, Swat to a private company and so far NAB has only found that the company has spent over Rs1 billion on the site from its own pockets to develop the site.

The land of Malam Jabba Ski Resort has remained controversial for decades as different government departments have been claiming its ownership especially the Pakistan Tourism Corporation Limited as Wali-e-Swat in 1969 had gifted this land for skiing resort but the land could not be transferred to PTDC. In 2014, the KP government decided to revamp the skiing resort which had been destroyed due to terrorism and a Lahore-based company Simson’s won the bid. When the company had constructed a 5-star hotel at the site and had contracted a renowned hotel chain for the business, erected a chairlift and zip liners for skiing and has organised two skiing competitions, NAB has started an inquiry two months ago against the award of contract to the company.

NAB has been provided the following record:

In its advertisement issued in March 2014, the KP government had asked the interested parties to express their interest in tourism development and the winning party will be given land measuring 275 acres (5 acres for Hotel and 270 acres for Ski/chairlift) initially for 33 years on lease extendable for 20 years.

The ToRs of the contract say that Malam Jabba Ski Resort was established by the government of Pakistan with the technical assistance of its Austrian counterpart on approximately 275 acres of land. It was suspended in 2007 due to unrest in the area. The area proposed for hotel was approximately 5 acres which is owned by the Tourism Corporation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and was to be offered for lease whereas the resort area of approximately 270 acres is a protected forest which is the property of the environment department and the department was to provide with access right to investors for the entire lease period for setting up of skiing/chairlift facilities.

The NAB has been provided a letter dated 13-01-1999 written by PTDC to Commissioner Malakand that the 275 acres of land in Malam Jabba be transferred to PTDC instead of provincial government and protected forests in the revenue record. Another letter dated 11-10-2004 written by Ministry of Tourism to Chief Secretary of the then North West Frontier Province now KP, states that the said 270 acres of land was gracious gift by Wali-e-Swat for establishment of ski-cum-summer resort at Malam Jabba in 1969. The letter says that the land issue became complicated with the passage of time and therefore the said land be transferred to Malam Jabba Resort Limited. Similarly many letters from Sarhad Tourism Corporation and Ministry of Tourism were written to the KP government for transferring the land in the name of federal government so that a proper skiing resort be established at Malam Jabba.

When the PTI government came into power, it decided to develop the Malam Jabba Skiing Resort site therefore they went for open bidding. Importantly, a high level meeting chaired by KP chief minister in April 2016 decided that the company, Samson’s will donate eco-friendly barbed wire to the environment and Forest Department for fencing of the entire area for the security of the visiting tourists. In September 2016, Divisional Forest Officer, Swat, wrote a letter to the private company stating that it was decided in a meeting with Deputy Commissioner, Swat on 26-08-2016 that Samson’s Group of Companies will provide building and erection material and technical hand beside barbed wire for fencing of protected forests in Malam Jabba as donation. The Forest Department will erect the fencing in protected forests. The same officer then intimated his subordinates to initiate the erection process well in time. But when the process was ongoing, in March 2018, the same Forest Department of KP lodged a first information report against the company for encroaching the forest land. By then, the company had installed chairlift at the site which was inaugurated by PTI chief Imran Khan.

Subsequently, NAB initiated a probe against the company for being awarded the contact by the KP government dubiously. The company has provided NAB with the entire record and has told the investigators that it has invested above Rs1 billion on construction of a 5-star hotel at the site, chairlift and restaurants and zip liners. The hotel is almost ready and is in finishing stage. The representatives of Samson’s have been summoned seven times by NAB so far in the past two months and every time the company lamented before the NAB investigators that the KP government had advertised that it would provide all relevant No Objection Certificates from all departments of provincial government, repair and maintenance of approach road to the resort and provision of electric power and none has been done so far.

It is worth mentioning here that it was reported that the KP government had dubiously awarded the contract to a private company while protected forest land could not be leased out in such a manner.