Minister says govt to ensure FATA’s smooth merger in KP

ISLAMABAD: Interim Minister for Law and Justice Syed Ali Zafar on Saturday said that merger process of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) must be made smooth and successful at all costs.

While chairing a meeting of the committee constituted by the prime minister for facilitating tribal areas merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said that all immediate steps including administrative, financial and judicial must be undertaken for long-term guidelines as the merger implementation process must be made successful.

He emphasised the need for achieving targets that he was briefed about particularly the administrative, legal, financial and legislative issues coming in the way of smooth transition regarding the merger of the tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Ali Zafar also constituted two sub committees comprising officials from the Ministry of Law, interior and finance to sort out financial matters as well as drafting rules and laws to facilitate the merger process. The sub committees are tasked to present recommendations in regard to the viable solutions of various administrative and legal issues in detail in the upcoming meeting.

The additional chief secretary of the Pakhtunkhwa also apprised the caretaker minister regarding the status of the rehabilitation of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their respective areas. The meeting was held to review the decisions that were taken in the last meeting.

The meeting was attended by SAFRON Secretary, Secretary of Planning, representative of the military, FATA ACS, provincial finance secretary, home secretary and other officials from the Law Ministry, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, SAFRON Ministry, Ministry of Finance and FBR.