June 17, 2007	Sunday	Jumadi-us-Sani 01, 1428

KARACHI, June 16: Senior Minister of Sindh Syed Sardar Ahmad has declared that the next year’s budget presented by him on Friday was in complete conformity with the 1973 Constitution.

The opposition members, particularly the Pakistan People’s Party, has no point in calling it unconstitutional because of the intervention of President Pervez Musharraf in the affairs of the National Finance Commission after the provinces failed to reach a consensus, the minister said while speaking at a post-budget press conference at the Sindh Secretariat on Saturday.

“The NFC, constituted in 2005 still exists as its term will expire in 2010,’’ the minister said without offering any explanation as to how far President’s intervention is justified when a constitutional body is in operation and has neither been dissolved, nor has completed its term.

“The budget is based on interim NFC award,’’ he made it clear.

The minister spoke at length on constitutional history of the distribution of resources after 1947 and informed that the 1973 Constitution replicated the provision from the 1956 Constitution, with an additional clause that gives room for intervention of the president.

He recalled that the NFC was constituted in 2,000 and completed its five-year term without giving any award in 2005.

In August 2005, the federal government convened a meeting of the finance ministers of the provinces where the Prime Minister’s Advisor on Finance, Dr Salman Shah, offered a proposal for distribution of resources between the federation and the provinces and among the provinces.

There were sharp differences on the principle of distribution of resources,” Sardar Ahmad recalled, and said one point of view that prevailed wanted only population to be the criterion and the other wanted multiple criteria, as is the case in almost all federations of the world.

“What is Sindh’s official position on Musharraf’s formula?’’ was a blunt question addressed to the government.

The senior minister replied that his government had conveyed its position to Islamabad.

“We want an independent NFC,’’ he said while pointing out that in its present form, the NFC is chaired by the federal finance minister, who, in fact, is a party himself in distribution of resources. All provincial finance ministers are also members with interests of their respective provinces. “No consensus is possible in such an NFC,’’ he said.

“The Sindh government’s proposal is to have an independent NFC,’’ he said.

The proposed NFC should work for five years during which the federation and the provinces should present their case before this commission. Let this commission give the award.

The senior minister said that provincial autonomy is measured by amount of fiscal authority; and distribution of resources can be meaningful only when provinces are genuinely autonomous. Sales tax, he recalled, was an entirely a provincial tax in 1947. After a few years of independence, the sales tax was partially federalised. But till 1971 when Bangladesh was with Pakistan, provinces were collecting 30 per cent of the sales tax.

“Now 85 per cent fund of the province comes from Islamabad,’’ he said and wondered as to where is the provincial autonomy.

The Sindh Planning and Development Minister, Mr Shoaib Bokhari, distributed a document to substantiate his assertion that in the last five years from 2002-03 to 2006-07, the government proposed an unprecedented investment of Rs87 billion development funds. Out of this, he said, more than Rs82 billion were released and about Rs73 billion were utilised.

These facts, he claimed, can be verified from the Planning and Development department of the province which is open to all.

Development budget of Sindh, he said, has swelled from Rs7 billion in 2002-03 to Rs50 billion in next current fiscal year showing concern of the government for the welfare of the people.

The Local Bodies Minister, Mr Mohammad Hussain, disclosed that a water policy is being drawn up by the provincial government to ensure supply of clean and potable water to all those living in 58,000 settlements in Sindh.

He claimed that there was no serious law and order situation in the province. In some parts of the province, there are instances of tribal feuds while in Karachi people carrying mobile phones worth billions of rupees tempt anti-social elements for snatching and grabbing.

The impact of 15 to 20 per cent increase in pay and pension of serving and retired government employees will come to Rs6 billion in a year. Of this, Rs900 million impact is on pensions and the remaining on the wage bill of employees.

Syed Sardar Ahmad said he had asked a foreign insurance company, Allianz, to work out a health insurance cover scheme for rural population of the province.

He said the provincial government has instituted a social security fund. The income of this fund will be used to provide social security for the needy and deserving.

He said Rs12 billion deficit in the budget will be met from savings or funds to be obtained from the donors.