Differences emerge between Federation, provinces over TORs of 10th NFC Award

ISLAMABAD (92 News) – Differences emerged between the Centre and provinces over the Terms of Reference (TORs) of the 10th National Finance Commission Award on Thursday.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah said that more time had been sought for TORs.

Earlier, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh chaired the inaugural meeting of the 10th National Finance Commission (NFC) at the Finance Division.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht, KP Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra, Balochistan Finance Minister Zahoor Ahmed Buledi and non ex-officio members including Tariq Bajwa (Punjab), Musharaf Rasul Cyan (KP), Dr Kasier Bengali (Balochistan), Dr Asad Sayeed (Sindh) and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance/ Finance Departments of provinces participated in the meeting.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister stated that NFC has been mandated by the Constitution to recommend to the President for amicable distribution of financial resources between the Federation and the provinces of the net proceeds of the taxes. "NFC is a forum to develop harmony between the Federal and the Provinces and to work out a sustainable resource sharing formula with mutual consensus," he added.

The Federal Secretary Finance outlined the Terms of Reference (TORs) of the NFC and the main tasks before the NFC which includes developing of a sustainable macroeconomic framework for the 10th NFC Award, vertical revenue sharing, selection of indicators for horizontal distribution formula, simplification of taxes to facilitate businesses and bringing erstwhile FATA at par with the rest of the country.

During the deliberations, members of the Commission highlighted emergent financial issues, including the need to increase the size of the pie for everyone, rising burden of pension payments and need for closer coordination between federal and provincial revenue collecting agencies.

The participants discussed the need for harmonization of revenue collection operations at respective levels of the federal and provincial governments to broaden fiscal space and streamline revenue collection.

The meeting formulated seven sub-groups with specific tasks on the basis of TORs of the Commission with the direction to present recommendations before the august forum in due course of time. The minister called upon all the members to do their best to come up with focussed and workable recommendations to make the 10th NFC Award successful.