‘Billions of rupees funds meant for displaced people embezzled’

LANDIKOTAL: Newly-elected Fata Senator Taj Muhammad Afridi on Sunday alleged that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor was not sincere with tribal people as the authorities have embezzled billions of foreign funds in the name of displaced people.
He said the Governor always played a negative role and did not want to hear the tribal parliamentarians who wanted to discuss Fata people’s grievances in a meeting held with him last week.
Quoting the governor’s words, the Senator said: “I have only invited you for lunch, not to discuss issues.” Taj Muhammad Afridi, who is a businessman and the owner of the Al-Haj Group, was speaking to tribal journalists during the inauguration ceremony of the main office of the Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ), Khyber Agency, in Peshawar.
He said the wrong policies of the past governments had pushed Fata into the ‘dark age’. He maintained that the incumbent parliamentarians from Fata were sincere in bringing the tribal areas into the mainstream of politics so that peace could prevail there.
Senator Taj Mohammad Afridi urged the tribal journalists to play their role for peace and development. He said he would present a resolution in the Senate for payment of compensation to families of 14 tribal journalists who were killed in the line of duty.
He said that with the help of other Fata parliamentarians, he would campaign for allocating quota for tribal journalists in housing schemes across Pakistan. He said the Fata Reforms Committee was discussing the problems and challenges being faced by tribal people under the Frontier Crimes Regulation.