KARACHI, Aug 8: Doubts are being expressed and questions raised at the inordinate delay in the formation of the National Finance Commission (NFC) even after all provinces have nominated their private statutory members.

“I have written two letters to the federal government and also personally took up the matter of the NFC formation with Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz during his last visit to Karachi,” Syed Sardar Ahmad, Sindh Finance Minister told Dawn by telephone on Friday.

He said that Islamabad had not responded to Sindh’s concern on the delay in the NFC formation. In an official communication Sindh has drawn Islamabad’s attention towards poor financial health of the province because of the unjust and unfair 1997 NFC award and has urged Centre that this trend needs to be corrected immediately.

The Sindh finance minister and his team of bureaucrats are now trying to confirm and assess the implications of a report which suggests that the federal government has introduced a new pricing policy on gas well head.

“How can Islamabad change gas pricing policy without consulting all the provinces?” a senior officer of the Sindh government said adding that the provinces had a big stake in the pricing structure of gas and they needed to be consulted before any change was made.

A report appearing in a section of press on July 31 revealed that the federal government had introduced a uniform price formula on gas wellhead. Sindh officials fear that such a change would cause a big fall in its share of direct transfer on account of development surcharge.

The issue was raised by the Balochistan government in its last budget in June. In his post-budget press conference at Quetta in June Balochistan Finance Minister Syed Ehsan Shah had said that he wanted his province to be treated on par with Sindh in matter of allocation of share on proceeds of development surcharge on gas.

Now that there are reports of a change in the gas pricing formula and that the federal government is indifferent to Sindh’s concerns on the delay in the formation of the NFC, there are fears that opposition political parties in the province may take up the issue to create problems for the government. There is already a strong campaign village to village, district to district and city to city in Sindh against the construction of the Thal Canal.

For the new NFC three provinces, Punjab, the NWFP and Sindh, have retained their nominees of the NFC constituted on July 20, 2000, on the orders of former President Rafiq Tarrar. Balochistan is the only province to have nominated a new member Dr Gulfaraz. Punjab will continue to be represented by Saeed Qureshi, a retired Secretary-General of the finance ministry. The NWFP has nominated Dr Zubair, a technocrat and cabinet minister in the Meraj Khalid’s caretaker government while Abdul Karim Laodhi will represent Sindh.

Officials say that there is no need to re-constitute the NFC. The President will simply endorse the change in composition of the private statutory members. The private statutory members are on the NFC by virtue of their nominations from the provincial governments. Other members are by virtue of their offices. They are federal finance minister who heads the NFC and the finance ministers of all the four provinces by virtue of their offices.

The change of finance ministers either in Centre or provinces will not make any difference and will not warrant any fresh notification. There may be one or two experts. In the last NFC, sixth in sequence after 1973 constitution, the secretary-general of the finance ministry and finance secretary were inducted as experts. The total membership of the NFC was 11 which is expected to remain unchanged.

Officials quote an specific instance when the entire composition of the NFC was changed but no new notification was issued.

The PPP government on July 23, 1990, constituted the NFC which was headed by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto who was then in charge of the finance ministry. Mr V.A. Jaffery was then Advisor to the Prime Minister on finance and Mian Ehsan Piracha was Minister of State for Finance.

The two were nominated by names on the NFC. In August 1990 the PPP government was dismissed and elections were held after three years. The new IJI government headed by Nawaz Sharif constituted the NFC in Nov 1990 with an entirely different composition. The NFC composition was announced and it completed its work by April 1991.

The present NFC, sixth in the sequence, was constituted in July 2000. It took more than six months to complete the composition. It could hold only five serious working sessions in late 2002 when elections were held and governments formed.

In more than seven months, the present government has also not been able to finalise the re-composition of the NFC which is causing concern and anxiety in the provinces.