ISLAMABAD: Caretaker federal law minister Barrister Ali Zafar, who also heads the special committee on Fata reforms, on Saturday constituted two sub-committees to sort out financial matters and draft rules and laws to facilitate the process of the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The sub-committees comprising officials from the ministries of law, interior and finance have been assigned the task of presenting recommendations with regard to viable solutions of various administrative and legal issues in detail in the upcoming meeting, said an official handout issued after a meeting of the special committee that had been constituted by caretaker Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk on June 11 to facilitate the merger of Fata with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

During the meeting, the law minister said that all immediate steps, including administrative, financial and judicial ones, must be undertaken for long-term guidelines as the merger implementation process must be made smooth and successful at all costs.

Meeting was briefed on the status of rehabilitation of internally displaced persons to their areas

Mr Zafar emphasised the need for achieving targets that he was briefed about particularly the administrative, legal, financial and legislative issues coming in the way of smooth transition regarding merger of Fata with KP.

The additional chief secretary of KP also briefed the committee on the status of rehabilitation of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their respective areas.

Presiding over a meeting to review the progress on implementation of Fata reforms on June 11, the prime minister had emphasised that the process of Fata transition to the mainstream should be completed swiftly and must provide a sense of security to the people of the former “tribal areas”.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary Mohammad Azam Khan had briefed the meeting on the progress of implementation and pointed to the various administrative, legal and financial issues that needed immediate attention to ensure smooth completion of the merger process following the passage of 25th Constitutional Amendment.

The KP chief secretary had said that the former agencies and frontier regions had been re-designated as districts and sub-divisions of KP province and the posts of the political agents and assistant political agents had been re-designated as the deputy commissioners and assistant commissioners.

The participants were informed that with the abolition of Agency Development Fund, the collection of all taxes, levies and rahdaris had been stopped. It was told that the draft plans for the extension of judiciary, policing, prosecution and prisons service in the newly-embedded districts had also been prepared.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2018