PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Wednesday directed the additional chief secretary of the Fata secretariat and political agents of all tribal agencies to implement a provincial governor`s order on the Agency Political Welfare Fund (APWF) for ensuring transparency in the financial aff airs of the entire tribal region.

Justice Qaisar Rasheed and Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah disposed of a petition filed by the People`s Accountability Forum Fata through its chairman, Ghani Gul Mehsud, with the direction to the respondents to strictly comply with the governor`s Apr 14, 2014, notification of the `standing order`in this respect.

The petitioner has stated that the governor had issued the standing order in order to regulate the APWF comprising duty on goods entering Fata daily and that its implementation was direly needed for the welfare of the poor Fata people.

The petitioner claimed that the respondents, including the political agents of Fata agencies, had been meting out an injustice to the people of the tribal areas by not implementingthe standing order.

The respondents in the petition are the federation of Pakistan through principal secretary to the president; federal government through the ministry of state and frontier region; federal ministry of interior; principal secretary to the KP governor; federal finance secretary; federal law and parliamentary affairs secretary; Fata secretariat through its additional chief secretary (ACS); Auditor General of Pakistan; accountant general KP; and political agents of seven tribal agencies.

Shakeel Ahmad, lawyer for the peddoners,saidthroughthe standing order, the governor had directed all political agents to release funds through proper receipts and maintain the records of all expenditure before submitting them to the Fata secretariat on a monthly basis.

He said the standing order further stated that all political agents and deputy commissioners of Frontier Regions should print machine readable permits/rahdaris and that their details would be communicated to the Fata secretariat on a monthly basis along with monthly reconciled statements of receipts and expenditures.

The lawyer said the governor had also stated that the mode of receiptsshould be through the bank deposit and that expenditure should be incurred through cross cheques duly supported by vouchers, if any.

He added that the standing order further stated that a receipt register should be maintained on a daily basis showing items receipt of the funds duly signed by political agents and deputy commissioners in Frontier Regions.

The lawyer said directions were also issued for the notification of all entry points to the respective agency for the transportation of authorised goods and the maintaining of proper register of the receipts.

He said the governor also ordered the establishment of an endowment fund at each agency and Fronder Region level to provide financial assistant to the poor people and regulation of endowment fund through proper rules to be notified by the ACS Fata.

The lawyer said the non-implementation of the APWF standing order was not only illegal but an abuse of power by the respective officers.

He said the implementation of the standing order would help bring transparency in the Knancial affairs of tribal areas, which were mostly backward due to the improper utilisadonofthe respecdvefunds.