Mainstreaming of FATA to be completed within a month; Prime Minister tells NA

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said that the process of mainstreaming Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) will be completed by taking opposition parties into confidence before the end of the tenure of the current National Assembly.
"The process to bring the FATA in mainstream will be completed within a month before the end of the tenure of this Parliament by taking into confidence of parliamentary leaders of all political parties. Funds of all agencies of FATA have been abolished today.
The local bodies elections will be held in FATA before October 2018," the Prime Minister expressed these views on the floor of the National Assembly on Wednesday.
About the decisions regarding FATA, which have been taken by the government, the Prime Minister said that there would be needed Rs 1,000 billion during the next ten years to develop the tribal areas. He said, "We will place the matter of funds for FATA in Council of Common Interests (CCI). There is also link of these funds with National Finance Commission (NFC)."
The government is committed to providing funds to FATA and is resolving modalities in this regard. "We will finalize modalities and procedure in next four weeks by sitting with the opposition," he said. "We will give timeframe for holding elections of national and provincial assemblies in FATA by sitting together with all opposition parties.
For this purpose, we will develop consensus on timeframe by sitting together with all stakeholders and opposition parties," the Prime Minister said. He said the government will take every step to bring FATA at par with other parts of the country. He said that most of homework for implementation on FATA reforms has been completed.
He said that peace and security situation in FATA is satisfactory and that the government would take all parliamentary leaders into confidence regarding the reforms.
He said that the jurisdiction of Supreme Court and Peshawar High Court has been extended to FATA through legislation. On April 13, the Senate approved a bill extending the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and Peshawar High Court to FATA.
The Supreme Court and High Court (Extension of Jurisdiction to FATA) Bill 2017, which was passed by the National Assembly in January, is one of the reforms paving the way for an eventual merger of the tribal areas with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.