KARACHI, Oct 16: Unease persists within the top echelon of the Pakistan People’s Party on the question of why the political leadership of Sindh has not yet demanded compensation for the losses and the desertification of the province due to, what they believe, impudent and blatant violation of the Constitution.
Former PPP Senator Taj Haider is of the view that this demand should have been made immediately after a tribunal, headed by Mr Justice Ajmal Mian, had ruled that the NWFP be paid its arrears of hydro-electric generation profits. The tribunal had calculated these arrears at Rs110 billion. Mr Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, an eminent lawyer from Sindh, represented the NWFP government before the tribunal.
These arrears have to be paid in instalments within the next five years. Interest will be calculated at the rate of 10 per cent per year on the balance amount which would mean that NWFP has to be paid a total of Rs135 billion (Rs27 billion per year) during the next five years.
The tribunal has also put the current annual hydro-electric generation profits transfer to NWFP at Rs25 billion. NWFP was being given a petty amount of Rs8 billion per year on this account. The decision means that now the province will receive Rs52 billion per year instead of an extra Rs44 billion.
Expressing concern over political forces’ deep slumber, Mr Haider pointed out that the Constitution laid down the principles of computing the hydro-electric generation profits in the explanation of Article 162. The A.G.N. Kazi formula was spelled out with the assistance of international accounting consultants in the light of this explanation and has the force of the Constitution itself.
The tribunal’s comment that the Kazi formula was no more relevant as so many things had changed was not justified, he claimed. Perhaps it has been made with a view to enable the federal government to absorb the shock, he said. Short of amending the Constitution and changing the explanation of Article 162 (which is very logical and common sense), the formula stays as the basis of computing the profits and transferring these to the government of NWFP.
Mr Haider maintained that as representatives of Sindh in the 1995 NFC, Syed Abdullah Shah and he himself had supported the transfer of hydro-electric generation profits calculated according to the Kazi formula to NWFP.
They had also supported the constitutional right of Balochistan to receive royalty on gas. The Constitution spells out in the same Article that excise duty charged on gas wells shall go to the province where the well was situated, he said.
At the time of making the Constitution, the only tax charged on the well was excise duty. Gen Ziaul Haq circumvented this constitutional provision by introducing new taxes and calling the same ‘Gas Development Surcharges’.
Mr Haider said that he and Mr Shah had held that the spirit of the Constitution was that any tax charged on wells should go to the province where the well was situated. It is in the same Article and on the same pattern as the hydro-electric generation profits.
Balochistan and Sindh are being cheated out of their gas revenues by a technicality introduced with mala fide intent by the federal government, according to the PPP leadership.
The agreement signed by the political committee of all the four provinces accepted these as ‘direct transfers’ under the provision of the Constitution. The agreement also provides that these constitutional direct transfers will have the first charge on the divisible pool.
The tribunal has accepted this constitutional position and has held that even the arrears of the direct transfers to a province could not be withheld and had to be paid with interest thereupon.
Politicians of Balochistan have already demanded that the arrears of their gas incomes should be paid to them but regretted that the government and the opposition in Sindh are still silent on this issue.
According to Mr Haider, much more severe is the question of huge losses suffered by the province due to continuous violation of the Water Accord with impunity for the last seven years. The accord and its attachments of 10 daily requirements of the province have the force of the Constitution, he claimed. The accord also lays down the basis of sharing the shortages, if any. This basis has constantly been violated and the province of Sindh has been receiving three to four MAF less than its constitutional share of water.
He alleged that Sindh has been denied its share in order to keep water level in reservoirs artificially high in order to generate more electricity and more hydro-electric generation profits. These profits are now being transferred to NWFP by the tribunal under the provisions of the Constitution.
The question certainly arises that while one province is being given its profits (caused at the expense of another), who will compensate Sindh for the losses and the disaster it has suffered by receiving much less than its constitutional share of water for the last seven years.
Mr Haider pointed out that transfers to the NWFP are direct transfer under Article 162 of the Constitution. These are outside the NFC Award and these will surely provide the province a very big financial boost. It can help Sindh pay back its loans and bring the same to zero in the very first year.
Lots of funds will be available to the province for building its infrastructure, spend money on social sectors and, of course, build many more hydro-electric generation projects under Article 157 of the Constitution, which allows provinces to generate, distribute and fix the tariffs of their electricity.
They can certainly supply electricity to their industry, tube wells and domestic consumers at one third the rate prevailing countrywide. This will give their industrialists and agriculturalists a very big competitive edge in local and international markets.