Fata Secretariat; the black hole where information is forever lost

Workings of authority remain mystery; few options for accountability, transparency

PESHAWAR: Transparency is a word that does not exist in the lexicon of the FATA Secretariat; almost everything is confidential for one reason or another.

While the physical terrain of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) is still somewhat accessible, the secretariat is another matter altogether; at least for the people seeking information from it. Since former governor Sardar Mehtab Ahmad put a check on sharing information, tight-lipped officials, behind closed doors, are even reluctant to share what is meant for public knowledge.

Anyone still willing to give the secretariat the benefit of the doubt should call and request simple information such as the number of schools in tribal areas.



Clearly, the moratorium has outlasted its executioner. The irony is that the same governor once asked if the K-P Right to Information (RTI) Act 2013 could apply to Fata.

In the case of the tribal areas, the bureaucracy has both feet in Islamabad and a shadow in Peshawar. The same way, political agents are essentially located outside the agencies.

Since 2002, when the secretariat was carved out of K-P’s planning and development department and made to stand alone as a separate unit, the bureaucracy’s skin has simply grown thicker and the administration thrives in dark, inaccessible caverns.

The only information that sees the light of day is when the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) picks up a suspect for financial misappropriation. The squandering of funds in the reconstruction of houses damaged during the military operations and preparing fabricated lists of displaced people is now an open secret.

Last year, even the one-line press release letting the outside world know of activity (singular) in the secretariat was shipped off to the Governor House; only to be heard from once in a blue moon.

The FATA Secretariat has grown into that informational black hole in which literally anything is thrown into only to disappear. There is little accountability because the bureaucracy feels it is immune thanks to the special status of the region under the Constitution. Journalists, you ask? They are not even in the picture.

While the current status of the tribal areas has become an issue, there is little knowledge on how the secretariat plans to change it.

There are policies and drafts – issued one after the other. If the sums and stats in these are taken into account, there is little doubt they are self-contradictory.  This is not to say that everyone in the secretariat is dishonest.

Perhaps, with time, the system under which Fata is governed has become a hindrance onto itself. It’s about time accountability begins and transparency is guaranteed.

While 2016 is the year when displaced people return to their homes, financial pledges have been made to donors. The tight-lipped attitude needs to end as leaving room for speculation makes for rough terrain. As far as the FATA Secretariat is concerned, it has had a history of self-prophesising negative speculation against it.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2016.