LAHORE:A two-day consultative meeting to discuss working groups’ recommendations on the 9th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award started here at Lahore Civil Secretariat on Monday.
Provincial Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha represented Punjab, while Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Muzaffar Syed, finance secretaries of all the provinces, NFC members and federal government’s representatives attended the meeting.
At the inaugural ceremony, Dr Ayesha Ghous said that in the maiden meeting of 9th NFC Award last year, the federal government for the first time had divided the provinces into four working groups, which respectively entrusted to prepare reports on resource mobilisation, estimation of expenditures, tax structure and subsidy, and rationalisation of grants. All the provinces had now completed their respective tasks, she added.
On Monday’s session, Additional Secretary (Budget) Saifullah Dogar presented Punjab’s report on ‘Resource Mobilization’ and all the working groups endorsed it.
Later, Sindh’s representative tabled a report regarding tax structure at federal and provincial levels.
Addressing the meeting, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah said that the NFC Award was a constitutional responsibility, asserting that next budget should be based on the new NFC Award.
Keeping in view experiences of 7th NFC Award, he added, recommendations on the new award should be finalized as early as possible.
The Punjab finance minister said that the NFC was the lifeline of the provinces, adding that recommendations having consent of all stakeholders would be made part of the final report, while rest of the suggestions would also be attached so as to convey these to the federal government.
She added that Punjab’s working group, in its report kept well in view ground realities while analysing and subsequently, giving recommendations on revenue targets so as to make their achievement possible.
KP Finance Minister Muzaffar Syed termed consultative meeting by Punjab a good omen and said that it would help ensure fast progress on 9th NFC Award.
At the end, the meeting also offered Fateha for martyrs of recent terrorist attack in Mardan and prayed for early recovery of those injured in the blast.
