Mehmood Aslam Wazir has been awarded the charge of Director General (DG) of FATA Disaster Management Authority (FDMA), spokesperson of the authority confirmed on Thursday. The post of the DG FDMA was lying vacant because former DG Siraj-ul-Haq has gone for Senior Management Course (SMC). Before this allocation of DG to Wazir, he was serving as an Additional Secretary admin (Tribal Affairs Secretariat). Acting quick on the directions of Chief Secretary, Wazir told his subordinates to abide by official timings, and to quickly counter the problems faced by Temporary Displaced Persons (TDPs). New DG also vowed to expedite the process of compensation process for those whose houses have been damaged in the war-torn areas of FATA. “Nobody in FDMA will be allowed to misuse the funds of the homeless people of tribal areas and the process of compensation will be made transparent enough to bring it to zero corruption level,” Wazir said. Meanwhile, an official said that cheques worth 24.42 million rupees were distributed among owners of 120 damaged houses in the Orakzai tribal district on Thursday. He said that the ceremony was attended by officials of Pak army, district administration, FDMA and tribal elders from the Orakzai district. He said that the owners of around 96 fully and 24 partially damaged houses were given cheques, with Rs. 400,000 for fully and Rs. 160,000 for partially damaged house. He stated that a total of 8,900 houses were declared fully and partially damaged during the war on terror in the Orakzai tribal district. “Overall, owners of 7,180 houses have been compensated so far in Orkzai district while the rest will be issued funds as soon as the survey is completed”, official added. He said that a total of more than 83,100 houses have been damaged in the tribal region during the war on terror in the last one decade. Published in Daily Times, August 31st 2018.