PESHAWAR, March 30: Well over a hundred development schemes for tribal areas are in jeopardy as the authorities have not created some 2,000 posts required to implement them, official sources told Dawn here on Saturday.
These schemes — under 76 umbrella projects involving a spending of hundreds of millions — in Fata’s education, health, public health engineering, forest and agriculture sectors, await creation of posts.
Several development works are unable to achieve the desired results in consequence of this failure on the part of the federal authorities, official documents show.
The projects already complete have been rendered ineffective because of non-creation of the requisite posts. Several others could not become functional despite having been finished some time ago. Still others are partially functioning due to shortage of staff, said the sources.
According to the data available in a set of official documents, some 874 posts are required to be created for five umbrella projects in the Fata education sector, 776 posts in five health sector projects, 93 posts in 31 projects of the public health engineering sector, 112 posts in 18 projects of the forestry sector and some 136 posts in 17 projects of the Fata agriculture sector.
The federal government has been requested to sanction these posts so that the development schemes could be made operational, one document states.
As per administrative arrangements devised for carrying out development projects/ schemes in Fata, the NWFP’s line departments carry out planning and development in the tribal belt. The recurring budgets for the operation of activities is sanctioned by the federal ministry of finance on the recommendation of the federal ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON).
“There is a serious lack of effective coordination between these two aspects of development leading to the non-utilization of many development facilities,” the official document contends.
Official sources told Dawn that in certain cases it took the federal authorities to sanction posts after two years of the completion of development schemes, leaving the said project ineffective during that period.
In view of the lack of coordination among the federal and provincial authorities concerned, the proposed financial reforms covered under the overall Fata reforms envisaged the delegation of powers from SAFRON and finance division, Islamabad, to the NWFP governor, empowering him to sanction creation of posts in the Fata — in his capacity as the administrative head of the tribal belt.