Pakistan must revisit its Afghan policy and treat it as a sovereign and independent country and not a province of Pakistan as a precondition for success of social, political and economic reforms package for tribal areas. Speaking at a symposium organized by the FATA Research Centre on Friday, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said there can no peace and progress in tribal areas unless there is peace in Afghanistan as well.
"There are several unanswered questions with regard to our Afghan policy that need to be answered", he added. About the recently announced reforms package he said its thrust was towards further militarization of the area instead of de-militarization.
The proposed 10-year developmental package costing nearly 800 billion rupees must not be left entirely in the hands of civil-military bureaucracy and the elected people should also be involved ensuring accountability, transparency and oversight, he said. The civil-military bureaucracy is loath to civilian oversight and cannot be allowed to solely spend nearly 80 billion rupees every year.
With Riwaj Act the province will have three sets of laws; for the districts, for provincially administered tribal areas and Riwaj Act for the tribal areas, he said. This tripod of multiple laws in multiple areas of the province is bound to be problematic he said and called for close parliamentary scrutiny of the Riwaj Act. Senator Farhatullah Babar also proposed that the levies force in tribal areas should be brought at par with the police and placed under the command of senior police officers instead of the political agent and military commander as at present.
According to the reforms package the levies strength will be increased to nearly 35 thousands from 12 thousands which is almost half of the KP police strength. If tribal areas are to be merged in KP province in five years it is necessary to merge Levies in the police, he said.-PR
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.