Among them was State Minister For Interior Shehryar Khan Afridi, who was given charge of the Ministry of States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON).
In September 2018, the PTI government decided to abolish the SAFRON ministry following the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Khyber-Pakhtunkwa. Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry had said that the provincial ministers will take care of FATA and therefore the govt was abolishing SAFRON.
“After the merger of Fata, the provincial government will look after the affairs of the tribal areas which is why we have decided to dissolve the Ministry of SAFRON,” he said in September. He further announced that the four the four Afghan commissionaires and chief commissioner for Afghan refugees will operate under the interior ministry.
The main responsibilities of the ministry are to deal with issue of tribal areas of Pakistan Frontier Regions of Pakistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas, but after the KP-FATA merger, the provincial government was given charged to solve issues of the FATA residents.
PTI leader Murad Saeed served as the SAFRON minister for 7-days, from September 11 to 18. Since September 18 to April 19, SAFRON had no one taking charge of it.