Daily Times

A meeting of the National Finance Commission (NFC) Friday agreed on making efforts to finalise the 9th NFC Award by December 31, 2019.

Federal Finance Minister Asad Umar chaired the fifth meeting of the 9th NFC Award here at the Civil Secretariat. The six sub-groups, formulated during the first meeting in February this year, gave presentations on various aspects of resource distribution as per terms of reference assigned to the groups. The main focus of deliberations was transparency, harmonisation and sharing of data.

The members of the commission appreciated the work done by the six sub-groups. It was agreed that the sub-groups will continue their deliberations and present their reports in the subsequent meetings.

Asad Umar suggested that deliberations should also include incentives for poverty alleviation and social sector spending. The representative of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government proposed a framework for NFC deliberations aimed at equalising the fiscal resources across federating units, equal access to public services for all citizens of Pakistan and expenditure efficiency at all levels of the federation. All members agreed on the framework and lauded the efforts of the KPK government in this regard.

The chairman emphasised the importance of a well-deliberated and consensus-based NFC Award and said that all federating units share a huge responsibility in this regard.

It was agreed that the next meeting will be held before end of April 2019, which will focus on FATA and the taxation aspects of ease-of-doing business.

The chairman reiterated that provincial governments will be engaged in the fiscal discussions with the IMF. He also suggested that each federating unit should nominate a focal person for data sharing to facilitate the working of sub-groups. He stressed the need for strengthening the NFC Secretariat and said that necessary measures will be taken in this regard. Technical members from Sindh and KP volunteered to submit a proposal in this regard.