PESHAWAR, June 21: NWFP’s Minister for Finance, Planning and Development Sirajul Haq has expressed the hope that the federal government would meet its commitment in respect of putting in place the new National Finance Commission (NFC) award in the near future to help small provinces overcome their financial problems.

“We reiterate our demand that the new award for distribution of resources among the federation and the federating units should be announced forthwith enabling smaller provinces, particularly the NWFP, to meet its financial requirements during the next fiscal year,” Mr Haq told a post-budget press conference on Tuesday.

The minister, however, expressed his trust in the federal government and said that the new NFC award would be announced after the local council polls.

“The federating units have developed consensus on almost all the NFC issues and President General Pervez Musharraf has been requested by the chief ministers of the four provinces to announce the next award. Therefore, there is no obstacle left in the way of announcing the new NFC award,” said the minister.

He credited the NWFP government with bringing the federating units closer to a consensus on the NFC issues.

According to him, the announcement of the NFC award was deferred by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz before the announcement of next year’s budget on the request of the government of Punjab.

“The government of Punjab requested that the award be announced after the local body polls,” said the minister.

He said that the financial woes of the government of NWFP would come to an end if the new award was announced and implemented from the start of the 2005-06 financial year.

The Rs2.3 billion deficit confronted by the provincial government in its budget for the next financial year, he added, would be done away with if payments from the federal divisible pool to the provinces were made in accordance with the new NFC award.

“We would be taking certain other budgetary measures to overcome the gap between our expenditure and receipts,” said the minister, adding that “the economy measures devised for the new financial year would help the provincial government to incur a net saving of Rs1 billion which would partly help overcome the gap”.

Similarly, he added, the resolution of the net hydel profit issue involving NWFP and Wapda as the two parties would also improve the NWFP government’s financial health.

“If our stand on the net hydel profit issue is accepted by the arbitration tribunal constituted recently and we are paid Rs345 billion in line with our claim against the Water and Power Development Authority, then we would be able to give loans to Punjab, Balochistan and even to Afghanistan,” said the finance minister.

Besides, the government would focus more on the social sector improvement and strengthen the industries and agriculture sectors to achieve economic growth and prosperity by generating economic activities and creating jobs for the unemployed.

The government intends to use part of the proceeds from Wapda - out of the Rs345 billion claim – for the betterment of people affected by the Tarbela dam project, he said.