Employees of Fata radio stations not paid for 2 months

[Naveed Yaseen]

PESHAWAR: The years long plan to inform, educate and entertain the people of the troubled tribal region and bring positive change in their lives seems to be in the doldrums as employees of the four radio stations launched for the purpose are not getting their salaries for the past two months.

Though officials of the media cell of the Fata Secretariat, the body responsible for arranging the funding for the radio stations, are content they would sort out the matter, the workers say it does seem to come true as talks with donors for more funding had already been collapsed.

Initially four radio channels were launched for the purpose to inform, educate and entertain the tribal people. Three of those were AM channels while one was FM. The first was the one launched in Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan, in October 2004, but the same ceased working following a militant attack in the beginning of the current year.

Another radio station was started in Miranshah, headquarters of North Waziristan, in December 2004 and it is still on air though received threats and both attacked in the past by militants. The third was the Razmak radio station in the same region, which was started in November 2005 and is still operational.

The latest among the four is the Radio Khyber, which is an FM channel and operating in Khyber Agency since May 2006. However, all the three channels, which are successfully doing the job of informing, educating and entertaining the tribal people, seem to be at the verge of closure as the employees are not getting their salaries for the past two months.

Employees at the radio channel offices told The News that they were not getting money even to run the office expenses and the same was running by purchasing items like fuel for generators, stationery etc on loan.

“The channels are working under the Media Cell of the Fata Secretariat where people are drawing huge salaries for doing nothing, but we are not getting our wages for the past two months despite doing the job in high risk zones,” said a senior worker at one of the three operational channels. The source said the Media Cell of Fata Secretariat was working under Capacity Building Project and Development Associates Incorporation. He said the Media Cell of the Fata Secretariat was operating at two places on the pretext that reforms were being introduced there (media cell) to make it more vibrant and active.

Sources said the funding for the remaining three channels started shrinking following the collapse of negotiations between the Fata Secretariat and the DAI, which wanted complete control over the editorial policy and to take over the stations.

They said there was a meeting between employees of the radio stations with high-ups responsible for running and funding the programme in February 2008 and it was decided that procedure would be devised how to arrange funding and continue the ‘successful’ operations of the channels in FATA, but nothing of the sort happened so far.

Director of Media Cell, Jehanzeb Latif, when contacted for comments, expressed the hope that funds would be released very soon to continue the project. He admitted that salaries were not released to the employees for the past two months. However, he added that the matter would be sorted out soon once they get more funds.

The official could not explain as when and how the funds were expecting to be generated to continue the radio channels. The FM and AM channels in Fata are mostly releasing music, social, news and entertainment programmes. Those are mostly focused on the requirement and environment of areas and people of that agency where they are operational now.

Following the launch of the four channels, it was expected that more such channels would be started in other tribal agencies and even settled areas to counter the Taliban propaganda, but nothing was done since May 2006, the month when Radio Khyber in Khyber Agency went on year.

FM is used by Taliban as their propaganda as well as threatening tool. It was the Swat-based Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah who rose to fame among the people of Swat and collected huge sums as well as army of volunteers with the help of his pirated FM channel.