FATA merger

The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are a colonial legacy that should have been brought into the mainstream of greater Pakistan a generation or more ago. It has suffered decades of neglect, infrastructure is ramshackle or absent and governance, including the law-and-order portfolio, rooted in the early 20th century. There is now agreement in principle to right the many wrongs, and way-paving legislation is on the books, but time is passing, an election is nigh and the federal government has yet to put on its hurry-up boots. The leader of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) has now called for the merger of FATA and K-P to become a reality before the next general election due in 2018, and failing that Imran Khan is threatening to raise the tribesmen and lead them on a march to Islamabad.

Whether that happens or not hinges on whether the government is as good as its word, made on 8th December, that it will table a bill in the lower house on FATA reforms and the merger of tribal areas with K-P on Monday 11th December. In purely practical terms the call by Imran Khan is unlikely to be achievable such are the complexities attendant upon the merger. Development analysts have spoken for at least the last two years of the process taking up to five years, and in terms of some of the cultural changes that will ensue possibly a generation.

Not all political stakeholders are on-board with the merger, and the JUI-F and the PkMAP have been stonewalling, and funding for the merger has yet to be agreed with federal and provincial governments that will have to stump up 3 per cent of the federal divisible pool for a minimum of 10 years to underwrite the merger — that alone could be an issue that takes months to resolve. Whether local elections in FATA can be held before the election is also an open question. Given these complexities a threat to stir up the tribesmen is far from being constructive and we suggest Mr Khan is a little more temperate in tone.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2017.

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