- FBR directed to come up with comprehensive proposals to fix taxation issues
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Minister for Law and Justice Barrister Syed Ali Zafar on Wednesday said that socio-economic progress and development projects needed to be efficiently and proactively carried out in FATA, besides the legal and administrative reforms after the merger of the tribal areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Chairing a meeting of the committee to facilitate tribal areas’ merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he emphasised the need for achieving five targets including turning tribal areas into cradle of peace and making it free of war, giving people congenial environment so that they could move ahead and providing them sense of security along with social services and rights.
“We have to work on a war footing for completion of the process of merger of FATA areas in the province,” he said, adding that it was a source of pleasure and satisfaction that the tribal areas had become part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “But more hard work is sine qua non for ensuring rights to the tribal people. We have to do work of years in days,” he added.
The committee recommended promulgation of all relevant laws and rules to remove any difficulty in the transition and implementation phases of the merger. For this purpose, the caretaker minister himself commenced the work of drafting laws along with the authorities concerned. The committee decided to take all legal, administrative and financial measures required to uplift the standard of living of the tribal people and bring them at par with rest of the country.
The minister said all steps including administrative, financial and judicial must be undertaken for long-term guidelines as the merger implementation process must be made smooth and successful at all costs. The committee observed that provision of funds should be ensured for the development of the areas that constituted the tribal areas. The committee directed FBR to come up with workable and comprehensive proposals in the next meeting as far as the system of taxation related to ex-FATA was concerned.
In view of the urgency of the matter, another meeting of the committee will be held this Saturday (June 23) to review progress on the decisions made in the last meeting. The meeting was attended by senior officials of the ministries and department concerned.
