Sam Rasool, the chief executive of Project Integrated Realty Developers, is in Pakistan where he has citizenship, after being unable to build the five towers in Park View, one of 15 major developments originally planned along Emirates Road in Ajman. The project was launched in June last year.

Rasool said he stayed in Pakistan in April instead of returning to the UAE because he was unable to repay his business partner, to whom he had given a guarantee cheque.

'I still have property plots that used to be worth about Dh75m in Ajman, but I am defaulted by about Dh8m because people are not paying,' Rasool said by telephone from Islamabad. 'It is a general crash in the market and you have to go to jail for that? So I packed up and I left.'

The National