October 09, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 9, 1429

PESHAWAR, Oct 8: The NWFP government will lobby for greater fiscal transfers to provinces besides setting a multi-factoral criterion for horizontal distribution of resources in the forthcoming negotiations for seventh National Finance Commission (NFC) award.

The provincial government is yet to devise its strategy for the proposed talks, but the political leadership of the incumbent coalition has a general consensus that the province should demand distribution of resources on multi-factoral formula instead of only poverty, said Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel, member NFC from NWFP, when approached by Dawn.

The federal government had re-constituted the NFC for finalising the seventh award that is pending since 2002 because of a deadlock over horizontal distribution of resources among the provinces.

The sixth NFC award, which is still in place, was announced by former president Pervez Musharraf in June 2006 following the provinces’ failed to reach a consensus over distribution formula. All the four former chief ministers had authorised the president to announce an award.

As per that award, horizontal distribution of resources were made on the basis of only population, which benefited the Punjab because it got 52.54 per cent of the total resources distributed in financial year 2006-07.

Likewise, Sindh got 25.2 per cent, NWFP 14.91 per cent and Balochistan received 7.35 per cent resources under different heads in the same fiscal year.

NWFP and Balochistan had been demanding resource distribution from federal divisible pool on multi-factoral formula, giving due weightage to poverty and infrastructure, whereas Sindh wants distribution on the basis of total taxes collected by the provinces, Punjab intends to retain population as the sole criteria for the same.According to Mr Adeel, the province will demand that the provinces should get 60 per cent and Centre 40 per cent of the federal divisible pool as vertical distribution of resources between the provinces and the centre.

Similarly, the NWFP government is going to slightly modify its stance, previously adopted by the MMA government, as in addition to poverty and infrastructure, it will also pursue for inclusion of presence of Afghan refugees, impacts of war on terror and industrial backwardness as other factors.

About the stance of other provinces, Mr Adeel said consensus has to be achieved over horizontal distribution resources to end the sense of deprivation among the smaller federating units and bring them to the national mainstream.

National resources, he explained, cannot be equally distributed on the basis of merely population because there were so many other factors such as poverty, infrastructure and now the impacts of militancy that have to be looked into.