KARACHI, June 7: The Pakistan Peoples Party, Sindh chapter, has said the federal budget has failed to do justice to Sindh. In a statement, leader of the opposition in Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro MPA, deputy leader Murad Ali Shah and PPP Sindh spokesperson on finance MPA Shazia Marri said the federal budget’s estimate of receiving Rs690 billion in the divisible pool was based on Sindh’s collection, since Sindh contributed over 70 per cent to the total amount. Yet, Sindh had been ignored once again.

Furthermore, as the budget was announced in the absence of a new NFC Award, distribution was done according to the NFC Award of 1997, the most damaging award in Pakistan’s history, they said.

The 1997 NFC Award was approved in haste, a day before the general elections, by the then caretaker government, and as such it never enjoyed public support and approval, they said.

According to the fraudulently approved award, the share of the provinces was alarmingly reduced from 80 per cent to a measly 37.5 per cent, while the share of the federation was dramatically increased from 20 per cent to 62.5 per cent.

Further on, the horizontal distribution was done purely on the basis of population, which continued till date, they said.

The PPP leaders spoke of a clear conflict of interest when the federation appointed a former NFC member from Punjab, Dr Salman Shah, as the Prime Minister’s adviser on Revenue and Finance. The latter was also given the responsibility to facilitate consensus among all provinces on the new NFC Award.

The federal budget was tainted by true inadequacies that existed with the faulty NFC Award, leading to an inequitable distribution of resources, both vertically and horizontally especially in the absence of a latest census and migration laws, they said.

The PPP leaders said it was now internationally accepted that fiscal decentralization led to better management of expenditure and provided better accountability of local authorities by the main stakeholder, i.e. the local voter of the area.

They expressed firm belief that fiscal decentralization would enable provincial governments to serve their residents much better, and said that the current vertical distribution should have been amended and sales tax, which was internationally becoming more a local tax, should be collected at the provincial level, allowing provinces to spend more on services and on the betterment of people.

They vehemently stressed that population alone should not be used as the criterion for resource distribution among provinces, and said they strongly supported the multiple criteria pattern for horizontal distribution of resources.