Filling in the blanks

The merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has always been fraught

The merger of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has never been anything other than fraught. There are so many vested interests in play, many of them powerful and few inclined to cooperate that reaching agreements were difficult in the extreme. In part this was because there was an absence of a credible mechanism by which a merger could be achieved. It is a monstrously complex process and will take years but at last and better late than never a road map is emerging, a ‘how-to’ process that is at least understandable and with a fair wind — doable.

Now it has transpired that the provincial government has set out a plan to merge the secretariats of the two areas creating a phase-wise merger of directorates of Fata with K-P departments which include administration, infrastructure and coordination, planning and development, finance, law and order, various social sectors and the livelihood department. First up for integration are education and health, and that to be achieved within three months, ambitious to say the least but not impossible.

With other mergers being timelined at six months and a year this is obviously a vast bureaucratic exercise and not everybody is going to be happy about it, and there are going to be winners and losers. It is going to mean changes in cultural and historical practices that will be resistant to the moves. Although there are commitments to preserving tradition it is inevitable that a time of radical change is before the people of Fata. Change is never easy or even welcome. Many still argue that there has been insufficient consultation and that changes are being imposed willy-nilly and without due deference. The fact is that the primary legislation has been passed and implementation is the next step. Fata is a colonial anomaly that most have agreed is long overdue for revision and the only realistic solution is a merger with K-P. Fata simply does not have the resources to be a ‘stand-alone’ as some have advocated. Blanks have now been filled in and the nuts and bolts of merger set in motion. It will not be easy or pretty.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2018.

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