Punjab to hire expert for NFC recommendations

By Jawwad Rizvi
LAHORE: The Punjab will hire a consultant for National Finance Commission (NFC) to give a final shape to the recommendations of Working Group of NFC, The News has learnt here reliably.
The decision to avail the services of consultant was made in the maiden meeting of the working group was held in the chair of Punjab minister for finance Tanvir Ashraf Kaira, official privy the meeting revealed.
The consultant will give a final shape to the recommendations of the Working Group on NFC and also assist the members of the Group in evaluating the new demands of the province in the NFC award. The meeting has also decided that consultant should be worked on NFC earlier. However, other qualifications of the consultant were not discussed in the meeting either the consultant will be an Economist or Chartered Accountant.
The Punjab has started work to prepare proposals and recommendations to present province's point of view in National Finance Commission (NFC) and the first meeting of the working group for the NFC of Punjab held under the Chairmanship of Provincial Minister for Finance and Planning and Development, Tanvir Ashraf Kaira which attended the members of working group. The meeting reviewed the various proposals and recommendations regarding Punjab's stance for NFC. The meeting also discussed the present NFC award in detail. It was decided in the meeting that final proposals would be prepared to present Punjab's stance in NFC.
Talking about the proposals, the official privy the meeting that the working group participants had suggested to develop Punjab’s stance on population basis as the province population has rapidly grow. Thus the province share should be more then the current awarded share. The meeting was also suggested that Punjab will again take up the issue with the federal government to give the right of General Sales Tax (GST) utilization.
It has learnt the meeting of the NFC which was due to held on November 25 2008 was cancelled due to untold reason. However, The News has learnt that the meeting was postponed as the Chief Minister Punjab has changed the members of the working group.
In the first working group the nominated members were Punjab Finance Secretary Tariq Pasha, Chairman Planning and Development Board Punjab Sami Saeed, Non Statuary member from Punjab in NFC committee Saeed Qureshi, former chairman planning commission Shahid Amjad Ch, former Punjab Finance minister Shahid Hafeez Karadar, professors of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Ijaz nabi, Dr Ali Cheema, Dr Faisal Bari, Pakistan Peoples Party nominated MPA Shah Jhan Bahti, Pakistan Muslim League nominated MPA Muhammad Yar Hiraj.
However, the chief minister has appointed new members in the Working Group. He made Punjab Minister for Law as Co-Chairman of the Working Group. The other newly appointed members are Sajjad Hussain, Tasneem Norani, Javeed Masood, Ch Riaz Ahmed and PML-Q MPA Atta Manika by replacing former chairman planning commission Shahid Amjad Ch, former Punjab Finance minister Shahid Hafeez Karadar, PML-Q MPA Muhammad Yar Hiraj.
Official in the Punjab government revealed that CM had made these changes to give maximum representation of the private sector stakeholders to develop Punjab formula for NFC award.
It is worth mentioning here the differences among the provinces were not resolved in Musharraf tenure NFC award due to which the last government had made decision to increase 2 per cent every year in the decided NFC award shares.
The Punjab has always emphasises to distribute the NFC award on population base while the Sindh demanded revenue base share and NWFP and Balochistan asked to divided share on areas basis.
The news was published in The News on Saturday December 06 2008