ISLAMABAD: The National Finance Commission (NFC) on Thursday formed seven working groups to thrash out several thorny issues, including amendment in revenue sharing formula, rising burden of pension payments, and share for Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) after its merger.
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh chaired the inaugural meeting of the 10th NFC. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Hashim Jawan Bakht, KP Finance Minister Taimur Saleem Khan Jhagra, Balochistan Finance Minister Zahoor Ahmed Buledi, members Tariq Bajwa (Punjab), Musharraf Rasool Cyan (KP), Dr Kaiser Bengali (Balochistan) and Dr Asad Sayeed (Sindh), and relevant senior officials of the provinces participated in the meeting.
The meeting remained peaceful as the members of the commission decided to form sub-groups to prepare workable recommendations for future meetings of the commission.
The meeting agreed to form seven sub-groups with specific tasks on the basis of Terms of Reference (TORs) of the commission.
According to an official, two sub-groups would be headed by the finance secretary while a sub-group of each province would be headed by the respective finance minister or secretary.
One sub-group will determine the fiscal share of FATA, one will work on facilitating the business community to address the business related issues, one will examine straight transfers and horizontal distribution of resources while a separate group will see vertical distribution of resources.
The names and formation of the sub-groups would be notified within a couple of days, the official said.
Earlier in the meeting, the finance secretary outlined the commission’s TORs and main tasks, which includes developing of a sustainable macroeconomic framework for the 10th NFC Award, vertical revenue sharing, selection of indicators for horizontal distribution formula, simplification of taxes to facilitate businesses and bringing erstwhile FATA at par with the rest of the country.
The finance minister called upon all the members to do their best to come up with focussed and workable recommendations to make the 10th NFC Award successful.
He welcomed all the participants and said that the NFC has been mandated by the Constitution to recommend for amicable distribution of financial resources between the federation and the provinces. “The NFC is a forum to develop harmony between the federation and the provinces and to work out a sustainable resource sharing formula with mutual consensus,” he added.
It merits mentioning here that it was the first meeting of 10th NFC after its formation almost nine months ago as the composition of the commission remained disputed among the federation and the provinces.
The Sindh government and some political parties had objected to the composition of the commission when it was notified in the mid of last year.
