This article was taken from our Algeria Politics & Security publication.

The Dounia Park scandal looks as if it might move to centre stage as soon as parliament reconvenes on 4 September. This is about 1059 hectares of land — originally intended as a leisure park but now seemingly derelict — on the western outskirts of Algiers.

The details of what may be going on at Dounia Park are currently still very obscure. The story, which contains a few facts, but many more questions than answers, began emerging in the national media in the last week of August.

The way the story broke on 25 August suggests that it is being brought into the public domain and possibly the courts by Abdelouahab Nouri who is the Minister of Urban Planning (i.e. land management), Tourism and Crafts. The fact that the issue appears to have been raised by Nouri now suggests that it might be part of the presidential assault on the Mediène-DRS clan.

Further support for that point of view comes from the fact that Cherif Rahmani, the key minister involved at the time of the Dounia Park plan in 2007-2008, was close to DRS chief, General Mediène. However, with so many other political and business figures possibly involved — such as the former ministers Amar Ghoul, Amara Benyounès and Dalila Boudjemaa, and possibly also FCE leader Ali Haddad, whose political ties are probably more towards Bouteflika than Mediène — this scandal, rather like the Khalifa Bank scandal, may be more politically convoluted than a straight Bouteflika-Mediène issue.

Dounia Park belongs to the 2000s. It was a futuristic project, the model for which was presented in 2007 and gazetted by the Rahmani’s Ministry of Planning, Environment and Tourism in September 2008.

The project was reportedly conceived and designed by the US consultancy firm McKinsey at the request of the UAE’s Emirati International Investment Company (EIIC). At the time, the government was looking for a project to modernise Algiers and for foreign investors to buy into. At this stage, the EIIC appears to be the only foreign investor involved, although it is possible that more might come to light if parliament or the courts decide to dig deeper.

Dounia Park was intended to be the world’s largest suburban park. McKinsey is said to have planed the project around two ideas or themes. One was that Algiers had no lungs: it was ten times less green than Rabat and nine times less green than Tunis. The 1059 hectares of Dounia Park would therefore become the capital’s lungs. The second was that Algiers’ residents, after 15 years of terrorism, no longer lived together. The city’s social bond had been broken.

McKinsey proposed building a green mini-city, alongside a large amusement park which would be accessible to the entire population of Algiers. The firm’s planners designed a city of villas and luxury apartments coexisting in the same space with smaller buildings designed to accommodate other social strata. The mini-city and park would enable Algiers’ citizens to reconstruct their social bond after the years of terrorism.

This week’s press reports talk of plans to allocate 70% of the 1059 hectares to a park and 30% to the built environment. The park would contain playgrounds, sports fields, botanical gardens, woodlands and grassy areas. EIIC, which undertook to develop the park, talked of planting tens of thousands of trees. Buildings would consist of 13,000 luxury apartments, 500 hotel rooms, a 5,000 seat amphitheatre, two tourist villages, 8,000 parking places, shops, an international hospital, and a 47-floor tower.

Rahmani is said to have signed a contract with EIIC in 2008. So far the value of the contract, how much money actually passed from Emirati to Algerian interests, and through what channels, is unclear. This week’s press reports say that the park was conceived as costing well over US$5 billion, with a five-year build schedule.

According to these same reports, negotiations dragged on for ages after 2008, with some sort of investment agreement being signed by the Agence Nationale de Développement de l’Investissement (ANDI) and the EIIC group in March 2011. Interestingly, Ahmed Ouyahia was quoted as saying in 2012 — a few months before stepping down as prime minister — that the ‘Emiratis had invested in wind’.

One reason why the Dounia Park project never got off the ground, apart from the possible diversion of funds, was because of the managerial instability of the EIIC, which allegedly lost large sums of money on the stock market in the global financial crisis of 2008.

If funds were embezzled, which appears to be the case, Cherif Rahmani, would seem to have been an obvious conduit, as well as his successor Amar Ghoul, who oversaw much of the embezzlement of the East-West highway funds. Rahmani has a track record in the embezzlement of both state and international funds. He had already established at least one vehicle for such embezzlement, namely his Fondation Déserts du Monde (FDM). He appointed himself as the FDM’s president, with the UAE, where he was immensely popular at that time, regaling him as ‘His Excellency, the President’.

The initial purpose of the FDM was to embezzle US$20 million of the World Bank’s Global Environment Facility (GEF) funds intended for the development of the Ahaggar and Tassili-n-Ajjer National Parks. This embezzlement, which has never been traced, was done in collusion with the DRS. The United Nations finally plucked up courage in 2005 to complain to the Algerian government. Two years later, on 11 December 2007, its offices in Algiers were destroyed, with eleven of its staff killed, by an alleged suicide bomber. The DRS is believed to have been behind the bombing.

The real scandal of Dounia Park would appear to be in how the 1059 hectares were first appropriated and then subsequently reallocated. Details on both these aspects are not yet known, but may emerge if parliament, or perhaps opposition politicians, start probing.

According to this week’s press reports, some US$200 million were allegedly spent on the initial land expropriation, with the land being transferred from either individual land owners, former collective farms, or the department of agriculture, to Rahmani’s Ministry.

This cost could have been much higher if the authorities had compensated the owners at the proper going rate of instead of the price which was paid which was only about 20% of the market. According to one source quoted in the media, the Emiratis thus acquired the land at a ‘symbolic’ price.

It appears that the original owners may be bringing legal action against the state, although this is very unclear at the moment. Some reports hint that the case is already in the courts.

An even bigger scandal may lie in what has happened to the land since the project came to nothing in or around 2011. This is where most of the questions currently lie, with the media having little more than hints and hearsay to work with at this stage. The main hint has come from Nouri himself, who said at Tipaza on 25 August, with reference to the Dounia Park project, that people, who he did not name, ‘had helped to distribute plots of land illegally and clandestinely and without consideration for legal conditions.’

Nouri denounced what he referred to as the illegal distribution of 65 of the 1059 hectares, saying the situation was ‘very serious especially since this distribution had not been given any regulatory [approval] and had been arranged clandestinely, without any development planning or [approved] subdivision of the proposed projects’, which, according to press reports, consisted of some 40 fast food outlets and restaurants.

The same press reports quoted Nouri as saying that he had cancelled 96 of these contracts or agreements and those that would be compensated. However, what or who these contacts are is still obscure.

Over the last year or two, Algiers has been awash with rumours of corrupt land deals involving prominent business and political names. If the government is to clean up this massively corrupt side of the way in which it has allowed and encouraged certain business and political figures to profit, then Dounia Park looks as if it could become the battleground.

With so many high-profile interests involved and at stake, however, it will be interesting to see whether the issue is raised in parliament this coming week, and in what direction it develops from there.

Some reports have said that we may not get to learn much more of the secrets of Dounia Park. Justice Minister, Tayeb Louh, who is perhaps better known for safeguarding the interests of the Bouteflika clan than administering justice, gave a clue to how things might develop when questioned on the matter by a journalist from Tout sur l’Algérie (TSA) while visiting the Algiers court on 1 September. TSA quoted Louh as saying: ‘Listen, I refer you to Article 32 of the Criminal Procedure Code. Find the answer there.’ Article 32 states that ‘Every constituted authority, public officer or official who, in the exercise of their duties, becomes aware of a crime or an offense, is required to give notice without delay to the public prosecutor and transmit all information, records and proceedings relating thereto.’

In other words, the ball would appear to be firmly in Abdelwahab Nouri’s court. How much support he will have from other key ministers, and especially Tayeb Louh, and the courts, is still to be seen.