KARACHI, Oct. 20: A meeting of prominent citizens, economists and social activists on Monday rejected the present system of resources distribution among the provinces on the basis of single factor—population—and unanimously demanded multiple criteria for this purpose.

Organised by the Sindh Democratic Forum, Actionaid, SPO and Thardeep, the meeting was attended by retired officials of the Sindh government namely, Fazllulah Qureshi, Abrar Kazi, Dr Asad Saeed, Zameer Ghumro, Professor Aijaz Qureshi, Naseer Memon, Zulfikar Halepoto, Mustafa Baloch, Fateh Marri, Raheema Panhwar and Zubeda Birwani. It called for a review of fiscal relations across provinces, between provinces and the federal government.

The sponsors of the meeting are drafting a package of recommendations for the recently established National Finance Commission (NFC). Participants of the meeting stressed the need for adopting a multiple criteria system for resource distribution that should include in addition to population, revenue generation and poverty.

The meeting demanded amendment to article 161 of 1973 Constitution to bring it in conformity with the concept of the federation spelt out in article 160. Accordingly, the NFC should be made independent, permanent, transparent and accountable and tenure of the head of the NFC should rotate among provinces and the federation.

A strong plea was made to disseminate the relevant information on taxation and that separate accounts of four provinces should be maintained. It was stressed that the overall taxation policy needed a review and powers to collect sales tax be restored to the provinces as is the universal practice in all federations, confederations and unions. The incidence of indirect tax should be reduced to minimum.

The government was urged to constitute immediately the Council of Common Interests (CCI).