LAHORE: Punjab will announce first-ever Provincial Finance Commission (PFC) Award in the budget for 2018-19.

This was disclosed at a meeting of the technical committee on PFC held here on Friday with Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha in the chair.

Local Government Minister Manshaullah Butt, Lahore Mayor Mubashir Javed, MPAs, finance secretary Sheikh Hamid, members of the technical committee as well as representatives of different departments attended the meeting.

It framed future line of action in the light of proposals of the commission and approval of the proposed formula of the PFC.

Allocation to be on the basis of population, poverty: Dr Pasha

Dr Pasha said that the PFC award would be based on the facts and figures provided by different departments under a formula devised by the technical committee of the commission for “justifiable” and “transparent” distribution of resources under the financial award.

The formula for distribution of funds has taken into account population, poverty and need of a district as well as performance of the local council while population will be gauged on the basis of the recent census results, she added.

She said the grants would be issued under four heads – general purpose, transaction, development and performance – while local governments would be given 49.5 per cent more funds.

A monitoring mechanism would be constituted for the transfer of performance grant and initially the duty would be performed by the technical committee of the PFC, the minister said.

Technical committee president Makhdoom Hashim Jewan Bakhsh and technical member Faisal Rashid briefed the meeting about various matters pertaining to the constitution of the formula and answered the questions raised by the committee members.

Dr Pasha asked the local governments to increase their recourses through levies of WASA, Solid Waste Management, Saaf Pani Company and other agencies.

She asked health and education authorities to stop unnecessary recruitment so that more and more funds could be utilized for development purposes.

The committee was proposed that a formal policy should be formulated for solution to pension-related issues and contract employees should be hired for temporary assignments.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2018