Islamabad:
Days before the Maiden session in the 11th National Finance Commission (NFC), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has demanded change in the formula for distribution of resources among the four federal units by drastically reducing the population’s share and including benchmarks for foresting and prosperity.
As much as 82% of resources are distributed among the provinces on the basis of population and 10.6% on the basis of the back, which needs to be changed, said KP Finance Minister Muzzammil Aslam over the weekend.
He spoke at a seminar organized by the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) from the platform for Prosper Pakistan. He added that the provincial government would require changes in the formula for horizontal resource distribution among the federal units of the NFC Forum.
“The provincial government will seek to reduce the proportion of population and include forest conditions as important benchmark,” Aslam said. His statement came two days after the president made up the 11th NFC and a few days prior to the first scheduled session in the Constitution Convention.
Federal Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb was chairman of the meeting.
Aslam’s view of reducing the proportion of the population corresponds to those expressed by the Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal. The Minister of Planning has proposed to freeze the number of people of 241.5 million for the NFC price and also reduce the share to 60%.
IQBAL has also proposed to include forest and climate change as criteria for the distribution of resources between the provinces. Climate change also causes flooding of flash, and there is a requirement to set aside part of undistributed federal divisible pool for building large dams.
Mian Anjum Nisar, former President of FPCCI, said there was also a need for large dams for storage facilities for agricultural water, and as agriculture is a provincial topic, the four provinces should contribute funds under the new NFC price.
NFC is composed to develop agreement on the vertical and horizontal distribution of financial resources. Under the vertical formula, the provinces receive 57.5% shares and the remaining goes to the federal government.
After paying provincial shares under NFC, the remaining income is not even sufficient to accommodate two largest expenses, debt service and defense.
The two-day FPCCI conference had been organized by KP Regional Office Peshawar in collaboration with the KP Board of Investment and Trade with other stakeholders. The Prosper Pakistan team, led by Hiba Fawad and Aun Ali Syed, organized this conference in which representatives of chambers from all over the country participated.
Aslam said it was not yet known whether the NFC prize would be a continuation of the 7th NFC prize or that a new debate would start with the resource distribution during the 11th NFC Award.
He said there were 12 ongoing hydropower projects in the province to generate cheaper electricity to 8 cents per day. Unit. However, the government has increased wheel taxes up to RS27 per year. Unit in an attempt to block cheaper electricity from the province, he claimed.
He said the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) distributed 110 MAF water among the provinces and it was agreed that four channels would be constructed but the left broad -channel could not be constructed.
In 2009 at the time of the 7th NFC Award -Completion the Federal Government had promised to fund the Left Bank Canal project but the promise remains unfulfilled
The KP finance minister quoted Ahsan Iqbal as saying that the federal government was on its way to economic collapse during the five-year period because the national Kitty was empty and the federal development budget was less than Punjab and Sindh.
However, one of the reasons for low-income and high budget deficits was that FBR could not increase its tax-to-BNP ratio to 15% in 2015. The FBR tax-to-BDP ratio is still 10.2%.
The government has made Bisarre decisions. It has given three charges to an FBR member, Hamid Atiq Sarwar. Hamid is a member strategic transformation, a member of inland income operations and surprisingly acting CEO of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited, which is purely a technical job.
Muzammal Aslam said National Highway Authority (NHA) was used to implement road development projects in the larger provinces Punjab and Sindh and ignored the federal government KP and Balochistan.
The imbalance in the development method has worsened the situation in the smaller provinces, he added. He criticized the federal government for demanding deforestation in the province and declared that the KP government increased its budget as 45% forests in Pakistan are found in KP.
