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Fifth round of NFC Award talks starts in city today

* Next round scheduled after Eidul Azha in Lahore

By Razzak Abro

KARACHI: Representatives of the federation of all provinces are scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday (today and tomorrow) to continue discussions on the factors involving horizontal distribution of resources in the National Finance Commission Award.

This is the fifth round of talks or consultation of the provinces and federation since formation of the NFC by the government. Initially two meetings of the NFC were held in Islamabad, and later two more were convened at Quetta and Peshawar. This time Sindh is hosting the NFC’s fifth round and after this another meeting would be held in Lahore, after Eidul Azha.

Finance ministers of the federal and provincial governments would attend the meeting as government members, besides the NFC, have four private members also.

Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah represents the Sindh province in the NFC as he himself holds the portfolio of the finance department.

Chief ministers of other three provinces are also arriving here on the occasion, but according to official sources they would not take part in the NFC meeting. However they would attend a dinner on Wednesday and it is likely that they might discuss the NFC issue. Federal Finance Minister, Shaukat Tareen has arrived here on Tuesday evening.

The NFC representatives are likely to continue their consultations or discussions over the factors of horizontal distribution of resources in the NFC. They have also yet to decide what factors or criteria should be there for the distribution of resources in the federal divisible pool, and how much the weightage of factors be other than that of the population, if other factors are also agreed to be included.

It is pertinent to mention here that Sindh has strongly demanded to include revenue collection as one of the criteria for distribution of resources among the provinces. Similarly, the NWFP and Balochistan have insisted for inclusion of poverty and area as two criteria, besides the population.

“We would continue our discussion on NFC about things we had discussed at the NFC’s Peshawar and Quetta meetings,” said Qaisar Bengali who is one of the members of the NFC from the Sindh side. According to him complication persists on some of the issues in terms of their technicalities.

Talking to Daily Times he said that definition of the area and indicators of poverty are also yet to be discussed and defined. Responding to a question that does he expect any breakthrough at the Karachi meeting of the NFC about any agreement regarding factors of horizontal distribution of resources, he said it could not be ruled out, however there is a high possibility that an agreement could be made at the next meeting of the NFC scheduled in Lahore.

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