LANDI KOTAL: The administration of Khyber tribal district restored the decades old monthly honorarium for all pro-administration elders of different tribes.

A cheque distribution ceremony for the purpose will be held at the Khyber House, the office of the deputy commissioner, in Peshawar on July 2. The mode of payment to elders has been changed from the direct disbursement to the depositing of cash in the recipients’ bank accounts through cheques.

The administration has already asked the recipients of honorarium to open banks accounts in own names.

Deputy commissioner of Khyber district Mehmud Aslam Wazir told a gathering of tribal elders in Bara area on Friday that the honorarium payment was suspended in May last year after the merger of Fata with KhyberPakhtunkhwa was a longstanding demand of elders. He said the elders demanded the early restoration of that payment.

Before the Fata-KP merger, the elders used to get honorarium in accordance with their status in own tribes and his personal services rendered for the then political administration. Money for the payments, which was discretion of the former political agents, was derived from the so-called Agency Development Fund, which the political administration collected through the khasadar force in the form of an informal tax at checkposts.

Officials said separate allocations had been made for the restoration of honorarium, while the disbursement through cheques was meant to fulfil the audit criteria for funds spent or distributed by the deputy commissioner and assistant commissioners. The tribal elders welcomed the honorarium restoration and said it would help address their financial problems.

They also demanded the payment of the amount not paid in the last 13 months.

KILLED: Two people were killed and one injured in Bara area in separate incidents.

A boy died in Gud Malang area after a portion of his house collapsed during a dust storm.

Meanwhile, teenage political worker Said Nawaz died of electric shock in Pakka Tarrha area.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2019