ISLAMABAD, Oct 23: A meeting of National Finance Commission (NFC), which was to be held on Friday in Lahore, has been called off in line with the government’s decision to leave the issue of evolving a formula for distribution of financial resources to the future elected government.

The government has decided not to announce the NFC award for the next five years and leave the issue for the elected government to decide, Finance Ministry Shaukat Aziz told reporters on Wednesday.

Talking to reporters, he said the government had almost resolved all the issues concerning the distribution of resources. He said the only outstanding issues were the distribution of 2.5 per cent General Sales Tax (GST) and the determination of royalty to be paid to NWFP by Wapda for power generation from Tarbela dam.

He said the issue of distribution of around Rs 26 billion to be collected from GST among the provinces was to be settled by the provincial governments.

Similarly, the issue of payment of royalty was also be sorted out by the provincial government of the NWFP and Wapda authorities.

The previous national finance commission award was also issued by a non-elected interim government of caretaker prime minister Malik Mairaj Khalid. The elected representatives and the provincial government later expressed their grievances on the award issued by a non-elected government.