THE province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa may ask the country’s president to intervene to ensure an early conclusion of the ninth National Finance Commission award, which, according to the Constitution, should have come into force on July 1, 2015. But the delay in its finalisation has led to the continuation of the previous award into its eighth year. KP blames Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for delaying a new award for the distribution of divisible tax revenues between the centre and the provinces for the next five years. The province’s finance minister has also hinted that the apex court will be approached in case the president fails to “discharge his constitutional duty”.

Indeed, the provinces, especially the smaller ones, aren’t too pleased with the situation. The new commission has met just thrice in spite of the expiry of the five-year term of the last award and has repeated demands from the federating units for a swifter conclusion of the next one. The centre appears to be intentionally dragging its feet on the issue. It has not been able to convince the provinces to spare 7pc of the total tax resource before splitting it between the centre and provinces to meet the additional expenses of internal security on account of the ongoing military operation and the development of Azad Kashmir, Fata and Gilgit-Baltistan. Islamabad is already paying around Rs100bn annually to finance the military campaign. It is for the same reason that Mr Dar took his case for “rebalancing revenue-expenditure responsibilities” of the federation and the federating units to parliament in May and sought the legislators’ support for the federal government’s stance. In his budget speech, he attributed the NFC delay to the provinces’ refusal to contribute to the additional cost of funding internal security and the development of federally administered regions. This government, including its finance minister, is not known for debating policy issues, especially those that are controversial, at public or constitutional forums unless circumstances force them to do so. They must understand that matters concerning the division of additional financial responsibilities between the centre and provinces can only be discussed at the NFC forum for an enduring solution. The accord on the historic seventh award shows that any problem can be cracked and any disagreement settled if debated properly at the proper forum. The sooner they return to the NFC for deciding the issue the better it will be for all.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017