PESHAWAR, Oct 15: The Provincial Finance Committee (PFC), NWFP, assigned to prepare by December 31, 2001 a new financial system the province needs after the establishment of 24 district governments, is apparently not likely to accomplish the task within the stipulated period, according to official sources.
Since its establishment early this year the PFC has held only two meetings, and the last meeting was held over three months back, substantiating the belief that it is not likely to achieve the assigned task.
Officials of the finance department, NWFP, justifying the delay, said certain assignments and tasks, concerning the whole exercise, given to the members of the committee and some of the provincial government’s departments were yet to be accomplished.
The planning, development and environment department, NWFP, was engaged in developing district-wise key socio-economic indicators to help PFC in devising a formula for equitable distribution of provincial resources among the district governments.
“The district wise indicators are vital to ensure an equitable distribution of resources among districts hence unless these are available it would be difficult for the PFC to move on this count [devising resource distribution formula],” said a senior officer.
The NWFP government’s authorities concerned and UNICEF were presently busy in carrying out a survey to develop district-wise indicators, and its preliminary report would be available in November.
Apart from the survey report, the provincial government has undertaken some other exercises to facilitate the PFC.
However, according to some other official sources, the PFC was overshadowed by the National Finance Commission.
“The entire attention of the provincial government has diverted to making preparations for the NFC,” said the sources while explaining reasons for delay in the proceedings of PFC.
National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB), back in March, had given a six months cushion period to provinces for putting in place the new financial system the province needs to have to divert financial flows from province to districts, to ensure decentralization of financial powers besides allocating tax and non-tax heads to the three tier of local government — district, tehsil and union.