Mainstreaming tribal areas: Workshop on governance structure for FATA kicks off

Participants suggest region be made separate province for a proper system.

PESHAWAR: A two-day workshop to discuss governance structure in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas kicked off in the city on Tuesday as speakers discussed the need to implement the 1973 Constitution in the region.

“The history of Fata is a dynamic combination of social process and economic change,” said the University of Peshawar’s Cell for Fata Studies Coordinator Dr Hussain Shaheed Soherwordi at the inaugural ceremony. “The programme aims to discuss development patterns, social transformation and political reforms for an effective administrative system.”

He maintained that Fata is referred to as an alien region and this testifies to the fact that we have disowned people from this part of Pakistan. Soherwordi said decades of war have had adverse effects on Fata and it is now time to bring the region at par with more developed parts of the country.

On the occasion, a speaker floated the idea to merge Fata with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or make it a separate province which has its own legislators to ensure there is proper administration to bring peace in the downtrodden areas.

Also present during the ceremony, senior journalist Rahimullah Yusafzai said the repatriation process of displaced people is not an easy task. He added tribespeople are in need of around a billion dollars, but the government has provided less than half the required amount.

The people of Fata need constant assistance as almost 60 industries have shut down in the region. Yusafzai lamented that lawmakers and senators from Fata do not raise the region’s problems in the Parliament.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2015.