A road map for FATA reform

Current and future governments face perhaps the most complex task on the domestic agenda — the integration of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) into Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). The merger is projected to take five years which is a credible time frame, but social change will take considerably longer, perhaps two generations of the hated and reviled Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) will be replaced by the Tribal Areas Rewaj Regulations and the existing justice system gradually subsumed by the extension of the jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court. There is to be a modified jirga system that will hear both civil and criminal cases. The levis and khasadars are to be replaced by the regular police and at least some of the khasadars will be retrained and absorbed into the regular police. Parts of Fata are to have access to the CPEC project, a potential revenue generator that may also bring much-needed jobs. In all there are going to have to be seven constitutional amendments that need to be passed before the proposed reforms can become law, and the process set in train.

There are infrastructure items to be created — new jails and courthouses for instance, and the seven new jails alone are going to cost in the region of Rs3,500 million, a figure that has to be regarded as provisional and will almost certainly rise. There will have to be a wide-ranging education programme that reaches all the people of Fata, and ensures that the reforms are understood, their implications and impact on daily life. Assuming the necessary legislation is passed then there is going to have to be an interdependent exercise with agencies and departments coordinating their actions in ways they have never had to do in the past. Bureaucrats are going to find themselves in unfamiliar, indeed uncharted, territories. There are going to be bumps along the road even if the necessary constitutional amendments are passed, and the proposals bridge across a general election in the opening phase. The skeleton of change is now sketched in, and we now hope to see flesh on the bones. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2018.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.