Daily Times

Balochistan Assembly Speaker Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, on Monday, demanded the federal government to enhance the share of his province in the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.

He said this during a press conference at the Karachi Press Club; lamenting that a mere three billion were earmarked for Balochistan’s development. Being the largest province in area, Balochistan deserved much more than this insufficient amount for its development projects, he added.

Mere 3 billion not sufficient for largest province: Balochistan Speaker

Bizenjo hoped that Prime Minister Imran Khan would resolve the issues of Balochistan and slammed the previous government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) for doing wrong to the province. The law and order situation in Balochistan was said to be much better while more efforts were needed to nip the terrorism in the bud. The speaker believed that Indian involvement in fomenting unrest in the province was still ongoing.

Held on February 6, the first meeting of ninth National Finance Commission (NFC) had asserted that fiscal allocation should reflect the true spirit of the 18th Amendment. Chaired by Finance Minister Asad Umar, this meeting was attended by representatives from all provinces; wherein six subgroups were formed to work on a formula for fiscal resource distribution.

Published in Daily Times, February 19^th 2019.