ISLAMABAD, May 27: The federal government is contemplating to arrange another informal meeting of the National Finance Commission on May 30 to solve the impasse on the sixth award, finance ministry sources told Dawn.
Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday briefed President Gen Pervez Musharraf about the situation and sought his guidance, they said. Mr Aziz was not available to comment on the meeting.
An NFC member, when contacted, said he had not been informed about such a meeting yet. He said the federal finance ministry might invite the NFC members a day ahead of the National Economic Council's meeting to seek consensus on the award.
The NEC meeting has been rescheduled from June 3 to May 31 and it would provide a two-day extended opportunity to the stakeholders to deliberate upon the issue, with input also expected from the offices of the prime minister and the president.
The provincial finance minister said he did not understand what another meeting would achieve when the issue could not be resolved in seven months. The finance ministry sources said the final effort was being made to see that the projections for the federal budget for 2004-05 were based on the sixth NFC award, which could help the provinces firm up their development plans for the next fiscal year.
The NEC meeting, expected to be presided over by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, is being held to firm up the Public Sector Development Programme for 2004-05 and a macro-economic framework for the next fiscal year.
The government is expected to raise its earlier offer of 47.4 per cent of the revenue for the divisible pool to 47.8 or 48 per cent, the sources said. The sources said the last meeting of the NFC was being called on the insistence of the prime minister and the president to give a last chance to provinces to come to terms on resource distribution.
The finance ministry sources said it would be the final effort on the NFC award before an announcement from the federal government to continue with the previous award for another year through a presidential order. In that case, the NWFP and Balochistan would be given special grants of about Rs3 billion to meet their additional requirements and cash flow problems.
