NFC Award | Pakistan

• Planning minister advocates measures to incentivise poverty reduction, sustainability, population stabilisation • Punjab minister for protecting rights of smaller provinces ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal on Thursday highlighted structural fiscal challenges being faced by the federal government and called for comprehensive and forward-looking reforms in the Natio­nal Finance Commission (NFC) Award. Speaking at the concluding session of the Pakistan Governance Forum, the minister, however, clarified that the constitutional vertical distribution of resources between the federation and provinces was not under review. Mr Iqbal noted that from approximately Rs14 trillion in federal tax revenue and Rs5 trillion in non-tax revenue, around Rs8.2 trillion was transferred to the provinces under the NFC Award. After these transfers, he said, the federal government retained fiscal space of approximately Rs11.07tr against total expenditures of nearly Rs17.5tr. “Nearly 50 per cent of ...

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Sunday warned that anyone who attempts to revoke the constitutional guarantees related to provinces’ rights as provided under the 18th Amendment was akin to “playing with fire”. Bilawal made the remarks in a video address to mark the PPP’s 58th foundation day, with his speech being live-streamed in “more than 100 districts” across the country, as per the party. Bilawal recalled that the ruling PML-N had also proposed constitutional tweaks related to the provinces’ financial rights under the National Finance Commission (NFC) award, which were then rejected by the PPP and did not make it to the final version of the 27th Amendment. “The PPP considers that there were a lot of faultlines in this country and remain,” Bilawal said, adding that the PPP had tried to address those by giving provinces their rights and due representation, and restoring democracy in the past. “Those people who are trying to play with the NFC Award or the 18th Amendment or other such matters, or are t...

PESHAWAR: Ahead of 11th National Finance Commission (NFC)’s inaugural meeting scheduled for December 4, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has said that it is focusing on financial merger of the merged areas into federal divisible pool. Earlier on Friday, KP chief minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi in a media interaction in Islamabad told reporters that he intended to attend NFC inaugural meeting. He said that he was going to attend the meeting as it was a matter of provincial rights and that the Centre should pay Rs3 trillion of liabilities. On Saturday, KP adviser to chief minister on finance Muzzammil Aslam in a social media post stated the shared a range of items which the province was expecting from the 11th NFC Award. Province seeks to align Award with ‘ground realities’ He said that the KP was looking towards the financial merger for erstwhile Fata into federal divisible pool. “Currently, merged area gets special grants from federal government. This will pass on the burden on provinces and relief to federa...