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Summary
Two-day session of National Finance Commission (NFC) award is underway under the chair of Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen in Lahore, reported Dunya News. Tareen says that formula of awards distribution has almost been finalized. Talking to media before the session Tareen said that rehabilitation would be given priority in the awards. He told that government would try to solve all the problems. Finance Minister maintained that poverty and fair distribution of resources would also be given priority along with rehabilitation. On the other hand, Haji Adeel, NWFP representative in the meeting told media that he would ask for resources from Punjab and Balochistan in the session. Our province is in state of war. Earlier 3 million Pakhtons left their homes, he added. He said that all the people would have to struggle jointly against terrorism for which not one or two rather billions of dollars were required. Hajd Adeel said that NWFP was suffering problems and needed aid badly. He told that federation assured NWFP of the aid. Earlier 2.5 billion dollars aid was announced for Malakand but now Peshawar is also badly affected, he added. Punjab Finance Minister Tanveer Ashraf Kaira said that Punjab would get more revenue than before.This is the fourth and the final NFC awards session while three NFC awards session have been taken place in other three provincial capitals. What is NFC Award?NFC award is the distribution of financial resources among the provinces by the federal government on annual basis. Certain types of taxes collected in each province are pooled, then redistributed according to the NFC formula. What taxes to include in the distribution pool and the distribution formula is a subject of debate. Pakistan has had five NFC awards formulas. The Fifth NFC Award, adopted in 1997, was supposed to be valid for five years but failure to reach agreement on a sixth has meant that the fifth is still in operation. Taxes included in the pool are (1) income taxes, (2) general sales tax, (3) wealth taxes, (4) capital gains taxes, and (5) custom duties. The inclusion of custom duties started with the 1997 award. In the 1991 award custom duties had gone exclusively to the federal government. Collections for the Worker Welfare Fund remain in the province where they are collected. Resource royalty is collected by the federal government and distributed to the provinces based on independent agreements.
