NFC award: K-P gathers support to push Centre for due share

Finance minister says province will continue to demand royalties and arrears from govt

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa administration has decided to take Balochistan and Sindh into confidence over forcing the federal government to announce the Ninth National Finance Commission award.

The provincial government also decided to convene a jirga comprising representatives from all political parties. The aim is to devise a future course of action to get K-P’s due share in the award.

The decisions were taken at a meeting held on Saturday with K-P Finance Minister Muzaffar Said in the chair. Secretary Finance Ali Raza Bhutta, Special Secretary Kamran Rehman, finance consultants and others were also present.



The participants discussed problems being faced by the province and tabled their suggestions to present K-P’s case in an effective way at the National Finance Commission.

The meeting decided to make the Finance department more active with proper planning and increase the number of experienced consultants to reduce poverty in the province.

The finance minister lamented that the NFC, instead of improving the system to resolve problems of the people, was politicising everything and this was not in national interest. “The NFC’s ignorant attitude forced us to take other provinces into confidence to get due shares,” he said.

Said said the K-P government would continue to demand the payment of Rs635 billion in net hydel profit under the AGN Kazi formula for which a separate meeting would be convened.

“Besides, the federal government owes K-P Rs29 billion under oil and gas royalty, while Rs119 billion is due for water royalty,” he added. The minister stated that K-P was facing various issues like rising unemployment, the burden of Afghan refugees, internally displaced families from Fata, terrorism and extreme poverty. He urged the federal government to pay the arrears.

The participants were informed that the federal government was using three million cubic meters of water, the cost of which in light of 2005 agreement, stands at Rs1.19 trillion which should be paid by the federal government.

He said K-P gets just 1% of the funds to combat terrorism which is insufficient.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2016.