Inattention to detail: FATA Information Directorate meets demise after only five years since inception

Officials blame FATA Secretariat’s negligence and USAID’s withdrawal of support.

PESHAWAR:

After only five years since it was established, the Directorate of Information FATA (DIF) has become non-functional due to inattention and lack of management from the FATA Secretariat along with USAID’s withdrawal of support.

The infrastructure and necessary equipment to be used in highlighting various development activities the government and donor agencies carry out in the restive tribal areas still exist. However, all employees of the DIF have stopped working.



The FATA Secretariat has failed to properly manage DIF and to assist it in becoming a functional entity on its own, while the USAID – which has supported and sustained DIF since its inception in 2008 – also withdrew its support a few weeks ago, an official familiar with the matter told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.

“At the moment, DIF only has the infrastructure of a separate entity within the FATA Secretariat, but not a single employee remains to run its daily affairs, rendering it non-functional,” said the official.

DIF came into being under the USAID-contracted Development Alternative Initiative (DAI) project in 2008 as the first FATA media cell. It was envisioned to later become a full-fledged government-run department, complete with financial allocation from the Annual Development Programme (ADP). However, the vision did not materialise throughout the last five years.

Rough start

According to the official, the FATA media cell had a bumpy start. Within nine months of its inception, a majority of staff including the deputy director, liaison officer, public relations officer, radio programme officer, monitoring officer and two peons resigned after developing differences with USAID officials over their corrupt practices, he added.



An audit report titled ‘USAID/Pakistan’s Capacity Building for FATA Development Programme’ dated January 28, 2010 also revealed corruption in the project.

The report, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune states: “The USAID contractor [DAI] did not assemble or install network infrastructure equipment by September 30, 2009. Most of this equipment, such as servers, firewalls, and communication devices, remained in the original boxes.”

Furthermore, the report stated the contractor did not install or connect around 400 laptops and desktop computers to networks. As of October 2009, 340 computers remained unused, stored in their original boxes at a storage room in the FATA Secretariat.

Reasons for DIF’s collapse

The insider maintained the fault mostly lies with senior officials of the FATA Secretariat for their failure to develop DIF as a government department. “Instead they just depended on USAID to continue to support the directorate’s activities which reveals their lack of interest in the matter,” he said.

The officials’ laxity can be gauged by the fact that after nearly four years of DIF’s inception, the FATA Secretariat in 2012 developed a project cycle-1 (PC-1) for it so it can have its share from the ADP. The secretariat also advertised various posts for the directorate in mid-2012 including deputy director information and assistant director information. However, nearly 15 months have passed and neither the posts have been filled nor the advertisements withdrawn. Even PC-1 remained limited to papers and files with no implementation as yet.

Fahim Khan, a USAID official, confirmed support had been withdrawn from DIF, however, he did not specify for what reasons.

The collapse of DIF under these circumstances has left a big gap in the communication between tribal people and the government and donor agencies. Efforts being undertaken by the government and aid agencies to develop the restive region will not be aptly communicated and highlighted to the locals, resulting in lack of trust on the government, which could further compound problems.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2013.