ISLAMABAD: Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have urged the federal government to announce a new National Finance Commission (NFC) award at the earliest, fearing that the delay would promote a sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces.
\nFinance Minister Ishaq Dar, however, has announced that the government had no plans to change the NFC formula. \u201cWe want to establish the next NFC award before the end of this fiscal year,\u201d he told the media on Wednesday after a meeting to discuss the first bi-annual monitoring report on NFC award.
\nAs no province objected to data and figures related to the federal accounts and total collections, the report for the July-December 2015 period was given formal approval.
\nThe meeting, chaired by Mr Dar, was also attended by Sindh\u2019s Chief Minister and the Finance Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, and finance ministers and secretaries of all the provinces.
\nMr Dar said that the ninth NFC commission has already been constituted. He acknowledged that the establishment of the eight NFC award has been delayed, but insisted that \u201cwe are on way to streamline the process\u201d.
\nThe federal minister added that accounts for the second half of the current fiscal year, ie from January-June 2017, will be approved by December 2016.
\nAfter the clearance on Wednesday, the report will now be forwarded to the National Assembly secretariat on Wednesday (today) for further perusal.
\nAccording to the report, total collections by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) stood at Rs1.449 trillion during the period, whereas the gross divisible pool stood at Rs1.415tr during July-December 2015.
\nGiving details about the distribution, the report said that out of the total divisible pool Punjab received 51.7 per cent of funds during the period under review, followed by Sindh (24.55pc), KP (14.6pc) and Balochistan (9.09pc).
\nIn addition, KP was provided with Rs14.02 billion for \u201cwar on terror\u201d whereas Balochistan province was also given Rs5.47bn in the same head.
\nIt was decided that both quarterly and biannual meetings would be held simultaneously and the next meeting is expected to be held in October this year.
\nThe meeting decided that the NFC secretariat should be further strengthened and all the provinces should get data from there.
\nMeanwhile, the Punjab\u2019s provincial review meeting of NFC would be held in Lahore on Sept 5.
\nAfter the Wednesday meeting, Chief Minister of Sindh Mr Shah and KP Finance Minister Muzzafar Said told the media that the delay in the establishment of eighth NFC award was not fair for the federation. \u201cWe have concerns over it and the new NFC award should be established as soon as possible,\u201d the KP finance minister said.
\nMr Shah stressed for a time line in this regard and said that the new NFC award should be established by Dec 31, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD: Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have urged the federal government to announce a new National Finance Commission (NFC) award at the earliest, fearing that the delay would promote a sense of deprivation among the smaller provinces. Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, however, has announced that the government had no plans to change the NFC formula. \u201cWe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2516,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business"],"yoast_head":"\n