December 2, 2003	Tuesday	Shawwal 7, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)

ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: Finance ministers of all the four provinces would meet in Lahore on Dec 12 to evolve a consensus on the distribution of resources under the 6th National Finance Commission.

A senior official of the ministry of finance told Dawn here on Monday that the meeting was being held on the directives of Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali who had asked for completion of the process without any delay.

The official said the provincial finance ministers’ meeting would be held a day before the second NFC meeting which would be presided over by Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Dec 13.

He said the prime minister had directed the officials concerned to ensure increased share for the provinces in the new NFC award so that the provincial governments could earmark funds for development projects, specially those aimed at alleviating poverty and creating new jobs.

“It would be pre-mature to say how much fresh resources the federal government could make available for the provinces, but we have been directed by the prime minister to keep in mind the increasing financial requirements of the provinces,” he

said.

The official said a “sufficient cushion” was existed that allowed the federal government to offer additional resources to the provinces.

However, he maintained the provinces should not ignore the centre’s obligations towards defence needs, debt-servicing and running of the civil expenditure.

“Our objective is to work out a resource distribution formula which should be acceptable to both the centre and the provinces,” he said, adding that discussions on sharing of divisible pool had started.

In reply to a question, the official said documents prepared by the military government in connection with the next NFC had been handed over to the provincial governments so that they could go through them and come up with new ideas for finalizing a “workable and better resource distribution formula” under the new NFC award.

Replying to another question, the official said matters finalized by the military government would come up for discussion in both the meetings on Dec 12 and 13. “But what will be the new ratio for the distribution of resources could be anybody’s guess at this stage as a number of issues are still to be discussed and agreed upon,” he said.

However, he said the federal government was not “adamant” and would consider making available increased resources to the provinces specially when the economy was in a relatively better shape than before.

The federal government had earlier agreed to enhance the provinces’ share in the divisible pool from the existing level of 37.5 per cent to 40 per cent. It agreed last year to increase provincial share to 42.5 per cent inclusive of Rs20 billion for subvention and Rs32 billion from the 2.5 per cent of General Sales Tax.