PESHAWAR: The high-powered National Implementation Committee (NIC) on Fata Reforms has endorsed the merger of tribal regions with northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and agreed that Islamabad would make a policy statement in this regard, two senior figures involved in the deliberations confirmed.
The
NIC, which met last week and was chaired by Prime Minister Shahid
Khaqan Abbasi, also decided and agreed to let Fata elect 23 members to
the KP Assembly in the general elections scheduled to be held in July
2018.
Besides Mr Abbasi the meeting was attended by
Chief of the Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa, federal Minister for
States & Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch, KP
Governor Iqbal Zafar Jhagra, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, chairman of
the Cabinet Committee on Fata Reforms Sartaj Aziz and the federal law
secretary, who deputised for special assistant to the prime minister on
law, Barrister Zafarullah Khan.
The meeting which took
the landmark decisions on Dec 18, but did not make them public, also
decided to do away with the controversial sections of the Frontier
Crimes Regulations and allow the colonial-era regulation to continue as a
supplementary dispute and conflict resolution mechanism with a sunset
clause to repeal it in its entirety once a proper judicial system was in
place in the tribal region.
Significantly
enough, neither was the meeting publicised nor any statement issued at
the end of it. However, three days later, on Dec 21, Prime Minister
Abbasi, in an apparent follow-up to the meeting, met former prime
minister Nawaz Sharif at his Jati Umra residence in Lahore.
Meeting attended by PM, army chief on Dec 18 decides to let tribal regions elect 23 members to KP Assembly in next polls
PM Abbasi and Gen Bajwa had met the JUI-F chief Maulana
Fazlur Rehman in the prime minister’s chambers at the Parliament House
to discuss Fata reforms and attempt to persuade him to drop his
opposition to the proposed merger plan.
No statement was
issued from the Prime Minister House but the JUI-F leader would say
only that consultations would continue over the matter.
His
party and Mehmood Khan Achakzai’s Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party are the
only two political parties opposed to Fata’s proposed merger with KP.
Both
are political allies of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, but it
is only the JUI-F leader whose opposition to the merger plan is
weighing heavy on the mind of former prime minister Sharif.
Media reports only said the two leaders agreed to address the reservations of the JUI-F chief on the Fata Reforms Bill.
Those Dawn
has spoken with say Mr Abbasi was supposed to make a public policy
statement regarding Fata’s merger with KP to remove any ambiguity in
terms of mainstreaming of the tribal region but that the announcement is
being withheld to enable the ruling political leadership to persuade
the JUI-F chief to drop his opposition.
Efforts by PM Abbasi and Gen Bajwa to bring Maulana Fazl on board have not made any headway.
Those
familiar with the deliberations say that any development on the merger
plan and giving Fata representation in the KP Assembly in 2018 is
directly linked with getting the JUI-F chief to agree to the Fata
Reforms Bill.
The bill seeks to extend the jurisdiction
of the Peshawar High Court (PHC) and the Supreme Court of Pakistan to
the tribal regions. “This is directly linked with the other two issues”,
one senior figure said.
Ruling party figures remain
optimistic that the wily politician from Dera Ismail Khan can be
persuaded to support the merger plan. “He has toned down his rhetoric”,
said the other figure.
However, Maulana Rehman has let
it be known that he would never agree to the extension of the PHC to
Fata, which by its very implication would mean Fata’s merger with KP.
“How
can the jurisdiction of the provincial high court be extended to
federal areas?” he told reporters after his meeting with the
civil-military leadership last week.
Unity of command
Another
key decision was to combine the office of the Fata’s additional chief
secretary with the proposed chief operating officer, Fata, to allow for
unity of command.
But while the JUI-I chief continues to
stick to his opposition and a clueless federal government remains
reluctant to follow-through on its decision to make a policy statement,
the government in KP and the 11th Corps in Peshawar has nearly finalised
an implementation plan.
Dawn has a copy of the 99-page
draft plan but a security official in Peshawar said its final version
was ready and would be shared with the GHQ in the next few days after
necessary tweaking.
The plan that has been firmed up
through due consultation between the KP government and the 11 Corps,
being the major stakeholders in the light of the cabinet decisions on
Fata reforms, provides for the full embrace of Fata with KP by
addressing the many legislative and constitutional issues involving the
merger and the judicial, administrative, security and development
systems required to be put in place with timeline and the resources
needed to implement the full spectrum of the reform package.
“Let
there be no ambiguity of the direction that Fata is going to go into”,
the security official said in a background interview. “The direction
should be clear and it should take us toward merger.”
“There
must not be any confusion”, he said. “This nation and its armed forces
have paid unparalleled and unprecedented sacrifices for Fata and any
delay could pose risks to the gains we have achieved.”
“It
would be naïve to think that only the passage of a reform bill would
bring about a change in Fata. It needs a clear plan with bench marks and
timeframe with matching investment to improve the socio-economic
condition of its people”, the official said.
However, there has been no forward movement on getting the resources to finance the reform plan.
An
NIC meeting chaired by PM Abbasi in October had directed the finance
minister “to seek, as a matter of priority, endorsement of the National
Finance Commission to the proposal to allocate a share from the
divisible pool for Fata the next 10 years.”
But despite
the fact that ruling parties in all the four provinces — the PML-N, the
PPP and the PTI, besides the federal government — which have publicly
endorsed the reform plan, there has been no progress on bringing about a
consensus on allocation of three percent of the National Finance
Commission Award to fund it.
“Any delay in implementing
the plan for the sake of political expediency would be a disservice to
the people of Fata in particular and Pakistan in general”, the official
said.