ISLAMABAD: The government bill on reforms in the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and its merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
would be tabled in the National Assembly on Dec 11, and the legislation
process would be completed on a fast-track basis, announced Minister for
States and Frontier Regions retired Lt Gen Abdul Qadir Baloch and
Planning Commission’s deputy chairman Sartaj Aziz on Friday.
Speaking
at a joint press conference with Mr Aziz, Mr Baloch said that officials
concerned would begin releasing tranches from the three per cent of the
federal divisible pool — amounting to Rs100 billion set aside for Fata —
next week.
He said that Fata’s merger with Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa could take a year or two. “Merger is not possible without
complete preparation; however the government is trying hard to complete
the preparation work and announce the merger during its tenure because
it has worked hard on the process and it wants to take credit of this
historic decision,” the minister said.
Fata reforms bill to be tabled in NA on 11th
He said the government was committed to abolishing the
Frontier Crimes Regulation on a priority basis because it denied
residents of the tribal region the right to lodge any appeal in any
court for change in conviction, the right to legal representation and
the right to present reasoned evidence.
He said the Rs100bn allocated for Fata would be spent
on various projects in the health, education, water, energy and other
sectors for socioeconomic development of the people of tribal areas.
Mr
Baloch said the ‘rahdari system’ was also being abolished in Fata from
Jan 1. He said that under the system heavy taxes were imposed on any
commodity being transported from other parts of the country to Fata.
He
said a Council of Advisory had been set up comprising members of the
National Assembly and Senate from Fata. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor
would be bound to implement the advice of this committee.
“The
additional chief secretary of Fata has been assigned the role of Fata’s
chief operating officer to control [manage] the issues of the region,”
the minister added.
He said that Fata had 2,293 vacant
posts in the health and education sectors. Of them, 1,440 posts had
already been sanctioned while the remaining ones would be sanctioned
within 15 days.
In response to a question, the minister
said the government was not delaying any project as it had sufficient
funds of Rs80bn for the current fiscal year.
For his
part, the Planning Commission’s deputy chairman said there were no
administrative, financial or political hurdles in the way of Fata’s
merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the government was implementing all
the recommendations made by the Fata Reforms Committee in January this
year.
Mr Aziz said the government would present a bill
in the National Assembly on Dec 11 that was likely to be approved. After
that the bill would be tabled in the upper house of parliament.
He
said that in order to mainstream Fata economically, a committee had
been formed which had almost completed its work. The committee would
submit its report to the National Economic Council by the end of this
month.
He said the process for inducting an additional
20,000 personnel into the Levies Force would be finalised within three
months. The recruitment process was being managed by the Frontier Corps.