KARACHI, March 15: The directorate of National Finance Commission (NFC) has convened a meeting of finance ministers of the four provinces next Saturday to what is being said - "evolve a consensus" on the resource distribution formula between the provinces and the federation and among the provinces.
There is no agenda for the finance ministers' meeting and independent observers in the provincial capitals are convinced that the purpose is to muzzle whatever feeble dissent voices are being raised from Karachi and Peshawar for a share in hydel profits and giving due weightage to the resource generation capacity.
A notification was first issued on March 6 for holding a meeting on March 13. The meeting was then deferred till March 20 as Sindh's finance minister Syed Sardar Ahmad was reported to be in USA.
He is supposed to return on March 18 and will attend the meeting on March 20. He has however, missed a very important mid-term meeting of the National Economic Council.
The four private non-statutory members of the NFC are apparently being taken for granted and kept away from the finance ministers' meeting on Saturday. Two of these members are retired bureaucrats. Mr Saeed Qureshi from Punjab, a former secretary-general of the federal finance ministry. Mr Karim Lodhi from Sindh is also a retired bureaucrat.
The other two private members from Balochistan and NWFP are technocrats. Dr Zubair from NWFP is a very close relative of former President Farooq Khan Leghari and has served as his commerce minister in the caretaker set up during 1996.
Dr Gulfaraz is a nominee of the Balochistan government and is a retired brigadier who had obtained his doctorate from a US university. His nomination was initially disapproved by Prime Minister Jamali. His approval on the NFC came rather late and this is one of the reasons for the delay in finalization of the NFC composition.
Those watching the NFC very closely say that Syed Ahsan Shah, finance minister of Balochistan is a non-Baloch non-Pakhtun second generation settler in Mekran and belongs to Millat Party of Farooq Leghari. Syed Sardar Ahmad, a retired bureaucrat joined the Muttahida bandwagon in 1997.
He was Sindh's finance minister in the coalition government with the PML-N in 1997 and 1998. After holding for a brief period the charge of home affairs in 2003 he took over the responsibility of finance in a coalition government with the PML-Q.
Looking closely at the political affiliations of the members on the NFC it is more than clear that only two finance ministers represent genuine political constituencies. Sirajul Haq, the senior and finance minister of the NWFP belongs to Jamat Islami.
Syed Sardar Ahmad joined Muttahida Qaumi Movement after his retirement from the civil service. The MQM was active and vocal in the provincial and national assemblies and in Senate on raising issues of Sindh.
But the MQM complains of a decade-long military persecution against its cadres in the province and then it still sought renewal of Rangers deployment only last July.
Sardar Ahmad played a pioneering role in unanimous adoption of a very strong resolution on resource share for Sindh in the provincial assembly last year. The NWFP wants a share in hydel profits on the basis of AGN Kazi formula.
