KARACHI, Nov 17: The sensitive issue of the National Finance Commission (NFC) has apparently been buried deep down under the rubbles of demolished structures caused by the October 8 earthquake.
But the NFC issue is not dead. It is an emitting smoke and may burst into a fire ball if left unattended. After a recent reshuffling of the finance portfolio in the Sindh government, the issue of the NFC composition has become all the more complex and confusing and may emit a lot of smoke and fire in the foreseeable future.
“Let us be through with the international donors’ conference on Saturday,” a well-placed source in Islamabad said by telephone on Thursday when asked if the NFC was to be reconstituted after the change of guards at the Sindh finance department.
Syed Sardar Ahmad has been shifted from the Sindh finance department to the excise and taxation department and in his place has come M.A. Jalil as an adviser. What is being enquired is whether M.A. Jalil qualifies as a member on the NFC to represent Sindh.
“I enjoy the status of a minister in the cabinet and will be on the NFC,” Mr Jalil told Dawn on Thursday, stating that it was not necessary for the NFC directorate to issue any notification.
But people in Islamabad are not clear on this issue. The relevant provisions of the 1973 Constitution say the NFC will be headed by the federal finance minister and will have finance ministers of all the four provinces as members. Private non-statutory members from the provinces will be nominated on the recommendation of governors of the provinces. The NFC is headed by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz who has with him the finance portfolio.
But Dr Salman Shah, prime minister’s adviser on finance and economic affairs, has also been nominated on the NFC. A source in Islamabad justified Dr Shah’s nomination as “private and non-statutory member”. Under the constitutional provisions, the private non-statutory member is nominated on the recommendation of the governor of the province.
By inducting Dr Salman Shah in the reconstituted NFC, the federal government has opened floodgates of controversies and confusion. But it has set an example for Sindh to justify Mr Jalil’s nomination on the NFC. Dr Salman Shah had been Punjab government’s official consultant during the deliberations of the last NFC and his position as a federal government representative on the current NFC becomes controversial.
But the matter does not end here. For the first time since 1974, Sindh will be represented on the NFC by two unelected members. M.A. Jalil is not a Sindh Assembly member and Nazar Sheikh, a retired bureaucrat, is a nominated private non-statutory member. Such a situation will give the opposition in the Sindh Assembly a chance to make a lot of noises on the issue.
Senator Sanaullah Baloch terms all this confusion and controversy on the NFC composition “deliberate and calculated”. The federal government is not at all sincere and serious in offering a solution to the resource distribution arrangement.
The Baloch Senator is convinced that the federal government is making a bargain with the NWFP government on the Kalabagh Dam issue on hydel profit and the NFC.
On October 7, the Senator had delivered a hard-hitting speech on the NFC issue on the floor of the Senate. He spoke on behalf of the entire opposition and warned: “Beware of the time when more gas pipelines and installations will be blown up in Balochistan. Guns cannot resolve the issues. You will have to sit and settle the accounts.” But the October 8 earthquake unfortunately put a cover of dust on the Senator’s warning and delayed the settlement.
Forgotten in all this confusion is the promise made by President Musharraf to give a resource distribution formula “that will be acceptable to all the four provinces” after the local body elections.
What is to be remembered is the fact that in hour of distress, the Sindh government and the people offered much more in money and kind to the quake-affected people than all other provinces and the federal government.
