ISLAMABAD: SAFRON State Minister, Ghalib Khan has said that the bureaucracy is a hurdle in the developmental projects of FATA.
He was speaking at the SAFRON Senate Standing Committee meeting that was held under the chairmanship of Senator Hilal ur Rehman in the parliament house on Friday.
The state minister has threatened to resign due to the reason that he could not initiate the developmental projects in FATA. He also censured FATA Secretariat Planning and Development (P&D) Secretary, Zubair Qureshi and said that he along with other senior bureaucrats are creating obstacles for FATA’s developmental projects on purpose.
The committee recommended that all developmental schemes that are in progress on the names of persons should be suspended because they can create tribal disputes and an SOP should be evolved including the name of the scheme. The committee has halted the work on 18 development schemes to the tune of 775 million rupees.
The Committee Chairman, Hilal ur Rehman said that the state minister should raise this issue of delay in the cabinet meeting. He also said that the governor should also participate for the timely approval of the schemes in the committee meeting and see the results.
It is the first time that a minister and the ministry are at loggerheads. It seems that the FATA development schemes are running on CNG and they need to run on high octane. The CDWP is sitting as a butcher for these development schemes and claims that they have a right to 13 % of the commission.
Ghalib Khan went on to lament that FATA has been treated as a slave of slaves for as long as anyone can remember. He said reforms should be carried out at the soonest possible as the world views Pakistan as an ignorant and disorderly country because of this. He reiterated that the bureaucracy makes excuses followed by excuses and nothing else.
FATA Secretariat P&D Secretary, Zubair Qureshi while briefing the committee said that the schemes have been delayed due to army operations. He said that out of the 90 billion rupees schemes approved by the prime minister, the army is at work on 30 billion rupees schemes.
The corps commander said that Khyber, Bajaur, and Mohmand Agency are lagging behind in development schemes and will now be spending 15 billion rupees. He apprised that there are a total of 1103 schemes out of which 444 are new and 55 have been taken up again, and out of these 176 have been approved and 268 have not been approved.
He said that in all such schemes a parliamentarian is consulted. Eight schemes have been approved in phase I for which 384.45 million rupees have been earmarked and these schemes have been approved by the FATA development.
The committee was presided over by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) governor. 391.08 million rupees have been earmarked for 10 schemes of FATA’s infrastructure development programme phase.
Senator Hadayatullah said that under the tribal system no roads can be constructed in anyone’s name because this creates problems. If schemes are named, the matter should be sent to NAB.
Senator Sitara Ijaz said that if schemes are to be given by the governor then where will the peoples’ representatives go? She said they will raise the issue in the Senate and agreed that roads should not be named.