Contracts for Fata uplift to be on merit: minister

ISLAMABAD: Minister for the States and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Baloch while responding to PPP senator Farhuttallah Babar told the Senate Committee of the Whole Tuesday that contracts for development work in Fata would be awarded on merit and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) would be a civilian.

He said that there was no room for FCR in the tribal areas and that the Riwaj Regulation was also being withdrawn. He emphasised for a line of action to first address issues prior to merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The minister also said that the bid to allocate funds under the NFC for Fata was being resisted, whereas there were also issues with regard to the CPEC.

“The promised Fata reforms have unfortunately become a casualty of government's indifference on the one hand and the coalition partners’ insistence on their pound of flesh from the then prime minister beleaguered and haunted by Panama gate scandal.

PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said this while taking part in discussion in the Committee of the Whole on reforms in tribal areas. Elaborating, he said a religio-political party, which he did not name, had been advocating pan-Islamism and was not deterred by geographical boundaries between the Muslim states. It was now in the forefront to oppose the fading away of line between Fata and Pakhtunkhwa.

Another nationalist political party, which also he did not name, has been clamouring for bringing the Pakhtuns of Balochistan, KP, Fata and Afghanistan closer together. Now it was denying the Pakhtuns of Fata to merge with the Pakhtuns of KP, he said.

Keeping in view the administrative, social, cultural, linguistic, political and geographical conditions and that all roads from Fata led to KP merger in the province was most logical, he said. Opposing the post of a Chief Operating Officer (CEO), Senator Farhatullah Babar said that it was a ploy to appoint at a later stage a serving general against it. Contracts worth scores of billions will then go to FWO and NLC without bids as the locus of power shifts from Islamabad to Rawalpindi and the area is further militarised and the black hole of Fata will deepen further.

The 45 Army's Engineers Division based in Peshawar has already sent out a letter in August last year instructing the political agents that no contract be given to civilian contractors who are reported by intelligence agencies to be engaged in "criminal and anti-state activities", he said.

He said that the Cabinet on March 2 decided to extend the jurisdiction of PHC to tribal areas. But in an unexplained somersault, the government has now been decided to extend the jurisdiction of IHC instead to tribal areas without taking into account the problems it will cause to litigants from far off tribal areas like Bajaur, and Waziristan, he said.

Babar also demanded immediate demolition of the existing system of levy and collection of taxes, cess, levies and rahdari by the political agents which he said was "arbitrary, illegal and a tool for corruption".

The poor people are subjected to unjust and illegal tax on transportation of every merchandise of daily use raising steeply prices of commodities, he said. This illegal extortion has become a lucrative business for some and people are openly talking of check posts being auctioned to the highest bidder, he said. He refuted the assertion that levy of rahdari and cess had been authorised by the governor. The governor had no powers to allow political agents to raise money for their expenditures. It has to be provided in the budget and subjected to audit by the Auditor General.

He said the Fata Reforms Committee had also recognised that the permit and rahdari system bred corruption and enhanced commodity prices and asked for its abolition. “If the government is sincere in bringing Fata into mainstream, it must abolish the prevailing unjust levy of rahdari, cess and duty and replace it with regular budgetary allocation for political agents and stop them from personal collection from the people,” he said.

About the Riwaj Regulation, he said that there was no need for it. More than 180 laws of Pakistan had already been extended to tribal areas including Draconian laws like Action in Aid of Civil Power. If anti-human rights laws are extended to Fata why benign laws could not be extended to Fata and why Riwaj Regulation are being brought,” he asked.