$54m FATA projects fall prey to red tapism

Three foreign-funded schemes meant to tackle root causes of militancy in tribal areas

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan may have to finally shut down three foreign-funded projects meant to tackle the root causes of militancy and restore people’s livelihoods in tribal areas because the Fata Secretariat has failed to remove bureaucratic bottlenecks in their execution.

The matter of bureaucratic mismanagement has now landed in the Supreme Court which, on Monday, will hear a case for reinstatement of the projects’ sacked employees.

Official documents show that the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) informed the Fata Secretariat last week about its intentions to close the projects. The projects, funded by a league of 12 countries and the European Union, aimed at helping Pakistan under an umbrella of the World Bank-administered Multi Donor Trust Fund (MDTF).

The total cost of the three projects is $54 million which is free money.

Work on the projects has already been halted which is a main source of concern for the donors, the federal government and the employees who are also fighting a case for securing their jobs.

“The inordinate delay in filling up key project positions has not only led to non-fulfilment of legal covenants by the Fata Secretariat but also halted utilisation of the allocated grant funds,” says a communiqué that the EAD had sent to the Fata Secretariat on March 13.

Due to these reasons, the option for closure of the projects will be deliberated upon in the next MDTF Advisory Committee, according to the communiqué.



The MDTF committee met on Thursday and allowed the Fata Secretariat to re-advertise the projects’ posts, said an official of the Fata Secretariat who attended the meeting. He claimed that the committee did not consider the option of closing the projects, but it did express concerns over delay in their executions.

In case the Fata Secretariat completed fresh hiring within two months, the steering committee would give extension in the completion periods of these schemes, claimed the Fata official.

Over the period of last few years, the donors had launched the Economic Revitalisation of K-P and Fata Project (ERKFP) worth $19 million, the Rural Livelihood and Community Infrastructure Project (RLCIP) costing $20.1 million and the Governance and Policy Project (GPP) worth $14 million.

According to the EAD documents, the ERKFP was suffering because of delay in the selection of project director and financial management specialist. The project management team had not submitted interim financial reports to the World Bank. It did not either share the independent audit reports for the last two years.

The GPP was not moving forward due to almost similar reasons. Similarly, work on the RLCIP was affected due to delay in appointing project director and financial management specialist and filling 40 other vacant positions.

Without securing prior consent of the EAD and the World Bank, in 2016, the Fata Secretariat had sacked the project staff, allegedly for bringing in their favourites, according to a sacked employee of the project.

The employees went to the court but in September last year, the Peshawar High Court in its detailed judgment in RLCIP and ERKF projects cases, dismissed the petitions filed by the staff.

Subsequently, the Fata Secretariat terminated the services of the RLCIP staff with effect from March 2017.

The project staff has challenged the PHC verdict in the SC, seeking restoration of their services and payment of liabilities, claiming that they had worked beyond March 31, 2017 on the explicit directives of the PHC.

In December 2017, the MDTF Steering Committee had decided to restore the sacked employees as considerable time had been wasted due to the ongoing impasse. However, the Fata Secretariat did not implement this decision.

“Less than nine months are left in the implementation of the RLCIP project whose second extension will expire in December 2018,” said sources, adding, “By this time, moving to re-hire fresh staff will not serve the purpose.”

In December 2017, the steering committee took the decision of reinstatement while keeping in mind that the recruitment of fresh staff was a lengthy process, causing further delay, according to the documents.

The project had been launched for providing essential rehabilitation services to the temporarily displaced persons in tribal areas and provision of drinking water and demand-driven jobs.

The ERKF project is aimed at supporting Pakistan in the economic recovery and revitalisation of the crisis-affected areas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, by creating sustainable employment opportunities through rehabilitation of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), investment mobilisation, and institutional capacity building.