PESHAWAR, July 27: The federal government has been asked to guarantee provincial autonomy announce a new National Finance Commission award in fulfilment of its constitutional obligations.

The demand was made at a day- long roundtable discussion organized by the All-Women Advancement and Resource Development, a non-governmental organization. Politicians, provincial lawmakers, economic experts and representatives of social work organizations attended the session.

They accused the federal government of violating the constitution by failing to announce the new NFC award which had become due since July 1, 2002. Among those, who attended the roundtable discussion, included Abdul Akbar Khan of the People's Party Parliamentarians, Haji Mohammed Adeel of the Awami National Party, Mohsin Ali Khan of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, Qazi Asad of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz group), Israrullah Gandapur, an independent member of the NWFP Assembly, Dr Abdul Mateen, member of the provincial finance commission and columnist Ayaz Amir.

The event was meant to discuss NWFP's issues relating to NFC award but participants discussed a wider range of political issues, including the military's role in national politics and the NWFP's stand on net hydel profit issue.

Politicians and provincial legislators, while supporting the NWFP's stand on net hydel profit issue, criticised the role of successive federal governments in this regard. The NWFP and Wapda have been at loggerheads over the issue for more than the past 10 years.

A large number of participants of the discussion accused the civil and military bureaucracy of denying due constitutional rights to smaller provinces, especially the NWFP besides holding it responsible for what they termed miseries and economic hardships faced by the people of smaller provinces.

The Frontier province and Balochistan, they added, had consistently been denied their due share from their share of net hydel profits and royalty on gas, respectively.

Haji Adeel criticized Punjab's insistence on keeping the population as the major criterion for distribution of resources among federating units, adding that it had opposed the same before the debacle of East Pakistan.

Columnist Ayaz Amir said that the issue of net hydel profit was not different from any other problem the country was finding difficult to resolve. "Had there been a functioning federation in the country, the net hydel profit issue was not an issue that could not have been resolved amicably," said Mr Amir.

Discontinuation of democracy and running the country in a supra-constitutional manner, he added, were two of the major problems faced by Pakistan.

RECOMMENDATIONS: At the end of the roundtable discussion, the federal government was asked to follow the Constitution in letter and spirit and finalize the new NFC award.