KHAR: The political administration of Bajaur Agency has given one month to nongovernmental organisations to replace non-local staff members with local residents in their development projects for the region.

The NGOs not complying with the directions will be dealt with strictly.

The decision to set the one-month deadline was made during a meeting here, the relevant officials told Dawn on Friday.

The officials said most NGOs didn’t follow the Fata secretariat criteria for employment.

The officials said the political administration had decided to crack down on NGOs not hiring local residents for their development schemes in the agency.

They said even the NOC of such organisations could be canceled.

The officials said the political administration was not satisfied with the performance of most NGOs working in the agency and therefore, it had decided to closely monitor their projects.

They said NGOs would be told to share their work plan and proposed activities with the administration for approval to execute them.

“No organisation will be allowed to carry out activities in the region without prior permission of the administration. This will help ensure transparency in development projects,” an official said.

The official said workers of several NGOs had been found involved in corruption.

When contacted, Bajaur Agency additional political agent Mohammad Irfanuddin Khan, who supervises NGOs in the region, confirmed that the political administration had set one-month deadline for NGOs to replace non-local staff members with local residents.

He said the step had been taken in line with the Fata secretariat directives as majority of NGOs weren’t ready to employ local staff for their projects.

The additional political agent said all NGOs working in the region were bound by the law to offer at least 70 percent of their jobs to local educated people but most of them flouted the law.

He said the political administration was committed to enforcing the Fata secretariat policy for NGO recruitment at all costs and that serious action would be taken against its violators.

Irfanuddin Khan said two staff members of the Medicines Sans Frontiers, an international NGO, had been expelled from the agency as they were not local residents.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2015

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