CM's aide seeks fair NFC resources

PESHAWAR:

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Finance Advisor Mazammil Aslam has urged a comprehensive review of the 11th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, emphasizing that the financial integration of the former FATA (merged districts) should be included in the divisible pool.

He warned that excluding these districts from the pool places an undue burden on the provinces while providing relief to the federal government.

Speaking in a statement issued from his office, Mazammil Aslam highlighted the need to address the concerns of smaller provinces, particularly K-P and Balochistan. He called for a reassessment of horizontal distribution factors, currently based on population, revenue, poverty, and reverse population density, suggesting these criteria be updated or restructured to reflect modern challenges.

"New horizontal factors should consider climate change, water resources, population control, provincial revenue generation, and human development indicators," he said.

Aslam also stressed that resources currently transferred to provinces by the federal government without standardized criteria should be re-evaluated, noting that smaller provinces receive a disproportionately smaller share compared to larger ones. He urged that federal expenses not mandated on the federation should be fully transferred to provinces, alongside identification of new revenue streams to improve the revenue-to-GDP and tax-to-GDP ratios.

He further highlighted the need for serious discussions on the Provincial Finance Commission (PFC), observing that while provincial budgets dominate local government expenditures in K-P, developmental allocations remain misaligned. Aslam noted that the PFC's own revenue sources, including property, municipal, and excise taxes, are largely ignored beyond provincial headquarters in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar,resources that could serve as game-changers.