ISLAMABAD: State Minister for States and Frontier Regions Ghalib Khan said on Thursday that all parliamentarians from the tribal areas had agreed on the merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad, Khan said the FATA’s reforms would be approved in the current session of the National Assembly. The state minister said the tribal areas’ merger is the 70 years continuous struggle of the people of the federally administered tribal areas. He did not give any deadline for the implementation of the reforms and said that it will be implemented gradually. The reforms will remove the sense of deprivation of the people of the tribal regions and will bring progress and prosperity in the region, he maintained. The minister was not sure if tribal regions will be given representation in the KP assembly in the 2018 elections. On this occasion, the FATA’s parliamentary leader in the National Assembly Haji Shah Gul Afridi accused Federal Minister of Safron Lt. General (Rtd) Abdul Qadir Baloch of delaying implementation of FATA reforms. Afridi said all parties are on the same page about the FATA’s merger with KP. He demanded the federal government give due right of 3 percent share to FATA in the National Finance Commission (NFC) before the merger. The FATA’s reforms are being delayed in spite the approval of the national assembly, the senate and the cabinet, he regretted. “The merger of the federally administered tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa needs to be done before any rebellion in the region,” he warned the government.
Published in Daily Times, November 3rd 2017.
