Source of income: Mohmand PA withholds January’s monthly stipend

Tribal maliks will not be given funds, while elders have received their share.

SHABQADAR: The political administration of Mohmand Agency has decided to halt the January 2015 monthly stipend for tribal maliks, an official said. However, authorities failed to provide a reason for the decision.

Political Agent Waqar Ali Khan, who ordered withholding last month’s stipend, confirmed the reports.

Official sources said that while influential tribal elders received their share, other monthly stipends were suspended. They said besides the elders, the political administration gave monthly stipends to retired civil and military officials who have served in the tribal agency or other areas of Fata.

Others entitled to these funds include orphans as well as school, college and university students. An insider added the total of these stipends amounted to between Rs4 and Rs4.5 million per month. The funds are generated by the political administration itself through local taxes on goods or the alleged smuggling of products between Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Torkham border in Khyber, Ghulam Khan in North Waziristan and Kurram Agency.

He said besides the alleged smuggling along the Pak-Afghan border, funds are generated by Fata through its plentiful natural resources such as timber, marble and precious stones. He said the political administration of Mohmand collected taxes on these goods and also charged levies on tribesmen bringing them in or taking them out from the agency.

The official said many financially disadvantaged children whose parents were killed in the ongoing wave of militancy were granted these funds as a source of income. He stressed affected tribesmen would face tremendous hardships without the stipend.

Some of the financially disadvantaged people told The Express Tribune the political administration stopped their funds, but still handed the money over to the wealthy.

Meanwhile, social activists contended that the tribal maliks, bureaucracy and the military always opposed reforms in Fata as the funds allocated for the stipend would be subject to an audit. Although the government ordered in 2011 that these funds be made auditable, they have yet to go through such a process.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2015.