K-P govt to appoint special secretary for ex-FATA f iscal issues

K-P finance minister says development programmes for tribal districts will be laid before cabinet soon

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government will depute special secretary finance to look after the finance issues of the merged tribal districts.

Owing to the transitory nature of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) merger into the K-P province, “separate fund will be allocated to erstwhile-Fata,” K-P Fianance Minister Taimor Saleem Jhaghra said.

“Special finance secretary will be deputed to disburse the funds in former Fata and look after the finance issues,” Jhagra told a meeting held at Planning and Development (P&D) Department.

The meeting decided that Independent Monitoring Unit for education and health facilities will be extended to mergedtribal districts.

The meeting chaired by Jhagra the other day also decided to launch health insurance cards in merged tribal districts from January 2019. K-P government will issue Sehat Insaf Cards on the basis of BISP survey.

The meeting, which was attended by additional secretary Fata, P&D secretary and high officials, decided to spend Rs10 billion in the next six months of the financial year 2018-19.

Moreover, the K-P government will issue Rs1 billion to Bank of Khyber (BoK) for extending interest free loans to youth in tribal districts.

Special provincial working committee meeting of the cabinet will convince soon for approval of all these projects, Jhagra told the meeting.

He said that seven-member peace and reform committee of the cabinet will be reconstituted after adding bureaucrats concerned in the committee.

Provincial government has planned special programmes to bring tribal districts at par with the settled districts of K-P, he said.

He told the meeting that the Fata secretariat will continue to work during the transition period of merger of federally administered areas with province. Once the process of the merger is complete, Fata secretariat will be abolished.

Meanwhile, Jhagra’s spokesman Attaullah Khan told The Express Tribune that at least Rs1.3 billion have been issued for standardisation of 21 higher secondary schools in the merged tribal districts. Moreover 25 stadiums will be constructed in tribal districts to initiate sports activities in these areas from next year.

He said that government has planned to install solar panels in mosques, hospitals and schools in the former Fata and a committee will prepare the project concept (PC 1) of these projects next year.

Attaullah said that Rs150 million have already been released for the solarisation of mosques, hospitals and  school hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2018.