So much is being said and written about the Federally Administered Tribal Areas nowadays that at times one feels it is being overdone. No other place in the world is attracting the kind of attention that Pakistan's tribal borderlands are. The place is variously referred to as lawless, ungoverned and the most dangerous place on earth. Many even believe it to be Al-Qaeda's headquarters.

However, most writings about Fata are of poor quality and even misleading. But the writers' understanding of the tribal people and their way of life is rudimentary. One reason for this could be lack of access to Fata, where the entry of foreigners is banned unless they possess a permit, which is hard to come by these days.

Some of this gap in knowledge about Fata could be filled if one were to read a recent paper by Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Titled "The governance challenge in the Tribal Areas (Fata) and the North-West Frontier Province," it was published on Jan 30, when the province was still known as NWFP. The 16-page document explains the administrative structures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, focuses on the role of the governor and governance, and looks at the emerging contours of a new social contract in the tribal areas.

Having served as governor for more than two years during the most turbulent period in the history of the province, Owais Ghani has been witness to momentous happenings and is aware of the administrative weaknesses and multifaceted challenges that this region is facing due to the spillover of Afghan militancy into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata in the aftermath of the US invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent military operations by Pakistan's security forces. Owais Ghani, who earlier served as Balochistan's governor for four years and as provincial and federal minister, is a Pakhtun from the Kakar tribe and belongs to the family of freedom-fighter Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar. Since he is the man on the spot responsible for Fata's affairs, his views carry weight and should be debated at a time when many proposals are on the table for bringing about reforms in Fata.

Despite the constraints of his official position and his serving as the governor of a strategically important province in a political setup in which the ruling PPP and ANP have been trying to replace him with their own nominee, Owais Ghani has boldly highlighted certain facts, such as the major body blow that the political administration in Fata suffered when the army authorities started direct dealings with the militants and their tribal interlocutors. In the process, the political agent and the administration were sidelined and lost influence and credibility and the tribes and their "maliks," or chiefs whose power traditionally depended on state patronage, were unable to stand up to the heavily-armed and better organised militants.

While analysing the steady decay in the administration system in Pakistan and its inability to effectively respond to challenges of militancy, rising crime and economic problems, Governor Owais Ghani has accused both political and military rulers of ruthlessly employing as instruments such as officials' postings and transfers, recruitments and promotions without merit and lateral-entry inductions to control the bureaucracy. In his view, the periodic cleaning of stables, like the dismissal of 303 and 1,300 civil servants by past governments and the use of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for weeding out corrupt and incompetent officers subsequently took on the shape of witch-hunts and selective accountability and demoralised the civil service.

He is critical of Gen Pervez Musharraf's Devolution Programme 2001 because it was poorly advised and hastily worked out and de-motivating the bureaucracy, which became non-cooperative. The district nazims failed to deliver during law-and-order situations and abolition of the office of divisional commissioners, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where militancy became a huge challenge, negatively impacted the administration whose role was to coordinate between the political agents of the tribal areas and the deputy commissioners of adjacent districts in matters of law and order and crime-control. In Owais Ghani's view, "devolution of government implies taking government to the doorsteps of the public and partnering with the public, but not necessarily placing the administration under the public's control!"

Governor Owais Ghani has highlighted several administrative anomalies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata, including the fact that parliament has no jurisdiction in the tribal areas and yet the tribespeople have been granted representation in the National Assembly and the Senate, but not in the provincial assembly. He concedes that the capacity of "collective responsibility" of tribes under the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) to ensure order and security in their areas has been severely weakened, the Khassadar policing system has proved hopelessly inadequate and the concept of "hamsaya" and "nanawati" as part of "riwaj," or tribal traditions, was exploited by the militants and criminals for seeking sanctuaries in Fata. All these fundamental weaknesses in the governance system need to be revisited as there was no going back to the pre-militancy status quo. However, Owais Ghani wants an incremental approach to reform in Fata since sweeping changes could cause problems. As was the case in Malakand Division where the princely states of Swat, Dir and Chitral were merged in 1969 with mainstream Pakistan without preparation and the result was poor governance leading to public disenchantment and eventually a full-blown insurgency.

Since January 2008, as part of the government's anti-militancy strategy, certain administrative changes have been made through restoration of divisional commissioners, the strengthening of the political agent's role and reform of the administration system in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata); these included the upgrading of Kala Dhaka into a district named Torghar.

However, more reforms are needed and the final status of Fata needs to be decided because there are diverse proposals for making it a separate province or merging it into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In Owais Ghani's view, a two-province proposal is more logical and viable from the social, economic, geographic and administrative aspects by undertaking a north-south division of Fata.

He is also an advocate of the four-tier district setup being implemented in the Pata districts of Malakand Division to cope with the militancy. In fact, he would like the Malakand model to become the model for all of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He has also proposed upgrading the administration of the six Frontier Regions for eventual conversion into districts. He wants creation of the post of additional political agent (development), raising the Fata Levy Force as the main police force in tribal areas, establishing Agency Development Councils for enabling tribal parliamentarian and elders to formulate socio-economic development policies, and placing the Frontier Constabulary under the governor's command, as it was in the past.

Owais Ghani would like the political agent to always occupy centre-stage, make sure that the governor holds only a few tribal jirgas on special occasions so as not to weaken the standing of the political administration, and offer tenure security to officers serving in Fata. He believes the FCR isn't a draconian law as is widely alleged and would be happy if it undergoes some reforms by limiting scope of arrests under its collective responsibility clause, incorporating bail provisions and establishing an independent Fata Tribunal for appeals.

He is in favour of extending the Political Parties Act to Fata to enable new social leaders cutting across tribal and sectarian divides to emerge and undertaking vigorous development activities by creating urban centres, carrying out land settlement and reclamation, launching irrigation projects and setting up trade gateways to Afghanistan. He wants creation of "Sterr Malik" or a tribal chief of higher category to empower elders capable of supporting the state's efforts for re-establishing its writ.

Owais Ghani's proposals are comprehensive and properly argued. Some reflect the official line and would be opposed by democratic forces. A debate on his suggestions would be useful because deciding the future of Fata and other conflict areas has become everyone's concern, not only in Pakistan but also in many world capitals. An informed discussion would enable us to make correct decisions keeping in view the aspirations of the tribal people and Pakistan's interests.