PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to abolish the Peace and Reforms Committee formed earlier last month for the erstwhile Fata merged with the province lately even before the body held its first meeting.

The seven-member committee headed by senior minister for tourism and sports Mohammad Atif Khan was notified by the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Nov 27.

Information minister Shaukat Yousafzai told Dawn that the government had decided to abolish the ministerial committee as the government had decided to do away with the secretariat for merged areas.

He said the committee was tasked with deciding the fate of that secretariat and since the government had decided to do away with the secretariat, there was no need for that committee.

Mr Yousafzai said special secretaries of finance, planning and development and home and tribal affairs departments would oversee the merged areas’ affairs.

Minister says no need for committee after decision to do away with secretariat for merged areas

He, however, said the committee hadn’t been abolished and a formal decision about it would be made in the cabinet’s meeting scheduled later this week.

The announcement to abolish the committee comes as its head and senior minister Mohammad Atif Khan is abroad. It was not known whether Mr Atif is on board about the decision.

The notification of the committee, which did not include even a single secretary, including additional chief secretary of the merged areas secretariat, had caused concerns among government officials.

The KP police chief was the only official, who was part of the committee besidesfive ministers and a retired bureaucrat.

There were also reports of lack of trust between police and civil bureaucracy over the KP-Fata merger process.

A source told Dawn that the government was making some changes to the committee and that another proposal in this regard would be floated through the chief secretary’s office after accommodating the changes.

He claimed that the chief minister would likely to head the new committee and a clerical mistake made the senior minister its head.

The source said the committee to oversee the merger process was necessary as there was other mechanism available with the provincial government to regulate the process.

The notification showed that law minister Sultan Mohammad Khan, finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhgara, information minister Shaukat Yousafzai, government spokesperson Ajmal Wazir, provincial police chief Salahuddin Khan Mehsud and head of the Chief Minister House’s Strategic Support Unit Sahibzada Saeed were its members.

Under its ToRs, the committee was responsible for proposing reforms initiatives for ensuring peaceful environment, setting strategic direction and policy level direction to all relevant departments for smooth implementation of government policies and development initiatives.

It was also supposed to take up issues with the federal government for smooth transition and earmarking of current and development funds, making liaison with police and other law-enforcement agencies for peace, reviewing progress of various initiatives undertaken by various department assigned to provincial government, review of public sector development program and annual development program projects and formulation of new budget and ADP.

The committee was also tasked with reviewing the local government initiatives and doing any other task assigned by the government for deliberation and suggesting a way forward for new initiatives.

Published in Dawn, December 11th, 2018