The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Friday overhauled the existing system of governance in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) days after the 25th Constitutional Amendment Bill was signed into law by President Mamnoon Hussain.
According to a June 8 notification issued by the KP Home and Tribal Affairs Department, political agents, additional political agents and assistant political agents have been re-designated as deputy commissioners, additional deputy commissioners, and assistant commissioners respectively "within the said areas, with immediate effect".
The change to the administrative system was made "in pursuance of the Constitution (25th Amendment) Act, 2018 and all other enabling provisions in any other law, for the time being in force, in the erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas".
The constitutional amendment bill seeking the merger of Fata within a year's time had been passed by the National Assembly and the Senate in May amidst opposition by the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam and Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party.
The provincial government last week raised a number of legal, constitutional and financial issues with the federal government regarding the merger of Fata with KP and identified the possible fallout on Fata’s transitioning and mainstreaming.
The chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Muhammad Azam Khan, touched upon a number of these issues in a letter to the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (Safron), but was optimistic that all the problems would be overcome with time.
