Budgetary allocation must for Fata reforms implementation: Babar

Islamabad

The unanimous budgetary recommendations made by the Senate to the National Assembly also included the proposals of PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar to allocate Rs10 billion for the Fata reforms project and another one billion rupees for strengthening the National Commission on Human Rights (NCHR).

Another proposal, also made by the PPP senator, called for setting up a Victims' Support Fund initially with a seed money of Rs20 billion for the rehabilitation of families of victims in the fight against militancy.

Talking to the media persons here Thursday, Farhatullah Babar said tens of thousands of armed forces personnel, civilian law enforcing agencies and ordinary citizens had been martyred in the fight against militancy. “The defence forces had devised elaborate plans for honouring the martyrs and for looking after their families,” he said.

However, Farhatullah Babar said there was no corresponding package for the civilian law enforcing agencies and other victims of war on terror. “There is need for a Special Victims' Support Fund,” he said.

He also proposed a minimum of 20 percent raise in pay and pensions of government employees. Yet another proposal of Farhatullah Babar endorsed by the Senate says, "In compliance with the May 28, 2015 decision at the All Parties Conference to build the western route of CPEC on priority basis, the Senate recommends to the National Assembly that the specifications of the western route of CPEC should thus be upgraded and brought at par with specifications of the eastern route and to correspondingly raise the allocations for the western route in the budget 2017-18."

He said while the government had announced Fata reforms package, it did not make any allocation in the budget for the implementation of the reforms. "It is inconceivable to even begin implementing the reforms without budgetary allocation," he said.

Likewise, he said, the NCHR was an autonomous body created by law to check human rights violations by state and non-state actors. “The NCHR Act provided for the setting up of a Fund under the control of the commission,” he said. 

However, he said the government not only failed to set up the fund, it allocated Rs250 million to a parallel human rights institute under the executive effectively subverting the independent Human Rights Commission.