PHC moved against non-payment of funds to merged districts

PESHAWAR: A former provincial minister on Tuesday moved the Peshawar High Court (PHC) against the non-payment of funds to the merged tribal districts.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and former provincial minister for finance and health Taimur Saleem Jhagra filed the writ petition through his lawyer Ali Gohar Durrani Advocate. The president, the federal government, secretary of finance, National Finance Commission, the Council of Economic Council, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary and others were made respondents in the petition.

The petitioner requested the court to order the government to hold regular meetings of the National Finance Commission and the National Economic Council.

According to the petition, the government merged the former tribal areas into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa under the 25th Constitutional Amendment in 2018 on the recommendations of the Fata Reforms Committee. As per the recommendations of the Fata Reforms Committee, the federal government was supposed to provide around Rs90 billion annually to the merged districts for 10 years so that the tribal people could be brought into the national mainstream by developing their areas.

However, the petition argued that the federal government had not shouldered its responsibility and did not release the promised funds to the tribal districts.

It said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did not have enough funds to pay salaries to the government employees due to the extra burden placed on the province after the merger of the tribal areas with the KP. The uplift work was not taking place due to the lack of funds.

The petitioner said that it was decided at the meeting of the National Economic Council on May 24, 2018 that the issue of the funding for the merged districts would be placed before the National Security Committee, but the funds could not be issued despite announcing this purpose. It said that the federal government had committed to giving the merged districts three percent of the NFC Award, but this promise was also not honoured.