A view of Lalmay village farm in Kurram Agency. — Dawn

PESHAWAR: Militancy and insecurity have become convenient excuses for the administration in Fata to camouflage the financial irregularities, committed by it in execution of development projects in the area.

Given the situation, independent monitors are afraid to visit Fata and carry out inspection of schemes in its different parts. That impression serves the political administration and line departments well as they have found a handy cover in the great veil of secrecy that has engulfed Fata to hide their ineptitude.

The visitors, dependent on the local administration for their mobility inside Fata, don’t have a choice but to stick to an itinerary planned by the officialdom. That means selective visits to projects that are ‘safe’ to inspect and propagate and avoid those that are not. The reports based on these visits eulogise the ‘good work’ done by authorities but what about the initiatives that don’t exactly fall in the ‘model project’ bracket.

According to an official report a team of independent monitors comprising teachers and students of University of Agriculture, Peshawar visited Kurram Agency for the validation of activities carried out under Sustainable Plains Development Programme (SPDP).

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan during his visit to the area last year had directed to carry out assess impact of several initiatives completed under SPDP in different tribal agencies through independent monitors.

Independent monitors are dependent on local officials for inspecting uplift schemes in tribal areas

SPDP deals with cultivation of dry land horticulture which includes irrigation, cultivation and harvesting in remote areas of Fata. The federal government had allocated Rs50 million for several initiatives under the programme.

The report submitted to secretary planning and development Fata stated that the team members visited walnut farm in Malikhel area near Afghan border in upper Kurram Agency having more than 80,000 healthy fruit plants.

The third party validation report said that large and well-planned orchards were established by pooling disintegrated wasteland parcels. It quoted some farmers as saying that they were getting Rs50,000 per acre per year income from their orchards. “SPDP worked in highly remote, insecure and heard areas of Fata and achieved its objectives,” it said.

However, local administration kept monitors in the dark and did not facilitate them to inspecting community farm in Lalmay village, apparently to conceal handiwork of the SPDP staff. Even monitors had no idea about establishment of farm in Lalmay.

The farm was established over 1,500 acres of community land and approximately 60,000 almond, walnut and other fruit producing species were planted there. Million of funds were spent on the farm, which was abandoned in 2007.

The local community pooled their barren properties and handed over to the management of SPDP to establish orchards in early 2000. Entire infrastructure has been ruined. The tubewell installed for irrigating plants does not exist. A prototype vertical designed shafted windmill used for watering plants has been destroyed. Local people used this abandoned farm for grazing purposes.

Nurul Ameen, the chairman of horticulture department at Agricultural University, who led the third party validation, expressed ignorance about the existence of farm in Lalmay village.

“I have no idea about activities in Lalmay,” he said when asked whether monitors visited farm in Lalmay. He said that the team members spent almost one week in Kurram Agency but they were not informed about existence of orchards near Parachinar. The monitors were totally dependent on local administration for visiting sites, he added.

“Officials of the administration directed us that they should not share details of the visit with anybody because of fragile security situation. We were to visit those sites where the administration wanted us,” he told Dawn.

Interestingly, Lalmay village situated about five kilometres southwest of Parachinar, the administrative headquarters of Kurram Agency, is safe as compared to Malikhel but despite that monitors were not allowed to carry out the survey there.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2015

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