The federal government is in the process of initiating the handing over of hitherto federally-owned hotels/motels of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) to provinces as per the 18th Constitutional Amendment. Depending on its location properties vary markedly in terms of value as well as in terms of their accrued liabilities. The single-largest liability of these properties is in terms of salaries and pension dues; and analysts are agreed that without first evaluating their financial assets as well as liabilities it would not be appropriate to begin the handing over to the provinces. In this context, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's directive that first evaluation of accounts be carried out must be supported. Additionally, Ishaq Dar the Federal Finance Minister indicated that the newly-elected government plans to privatise PTDC itself.
A meeting of the PTDC board subsequently decided to appoint a liquidator to evaluate the value of all the properties owned by PTDC throughout the country and make appropriate adjustments of their liabilities. Inexplicably the Secretary of PTDC rejected the Board's decision and decided that no liquidator would be appointed and properties would simply be handed over to the provinces. Secretary Inter-Provincial Co-ordination (IPC) Board also in defiance of the Prime Minister's directive indicated that properties are going to be handed over to the provinces but clarified that at present only the administration of these hotels/motels was being handed over and that control of assets would be given after the assets were evaluated and their cost obtained from the provinces. This approach lacks logic. If administrative control is handed over to the provinces, even if it is at the insistence of the provinces if Secretary IPC is to be believed, then the incentive to clear past liabilities would just not be there. In other words, if a province has complete administrative control over a property then why would it accept liabilities that can be attributed to poor financial management by the former administrator of these properties. The only way to ensure that the provinces will clear past liabilities would be to evaluate and adjust assets and liabilities prior to handing over administrative or ownership control.
There are numerous properties owned by PTDC and include the Flashman's Hotel in Rawalpindi as well as motels in (i) Ayubia, (ii) Naran, (iii) Shogran, (iv) Astak, (v) Booni, (vi) Besham, (vi) Chitral, (vii) Karimabad, Hunza, (ix) Swat Valley, (x) Saidu Sharif, Swat Valley, (xi) Panakot, (xii) Satpara, (xiii) Sust Pakistan-China border Gilgit, (xiv) Torkham, Fata, (xv) Wagha Pakistan-India border near Lahore, and (xvi) Ziarat, Balochistan. The bulk of the properties are in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and it was originally decided to begin the handing over process in that province before commencing the process in other provinces. However, with the installation of the PML (N) government the priority has undergone a change and at present Rawalpindi Flashman's is in the news for taking the lead in being handed over to the Punjab government. One would hope that the reason behind this change must be communicated to the general public and if the logic is found wanting then there is a need to revisit this priority.
Pakistan as a destination for tourism has suffered greatly post-9/11 due to the escalation in terror attacks targeting foreigners but it must be borne in mind that even in the pre-9/11 days Pakistan tourism suffered from kidnapping of foreigners as well as a lack of interest on the part of our governments to proactively seek to promote tourism which was visible in a passive advertising campaign at best. At present the scale and extent of terror attacks need to be the focus before any effort towards promoting tourism would be successful but one would hope that a strategy to do so would be formulated.