- Earlier consultations with stakeholders could have helped
That the National Finance Commission has been constituted has been overdue, but it has run into objections from the very outset, with Sindh Chief Minister writing to the Prime Minister to object to first the naming of Dr Hafeez Sheikh to head it as PM’s Finance Adviser, and also to the terms of reference by which the Centre is allowed to charge the provinces for expenditure on defence, and on disaster management. Dr Sheikh will have to be found a seat in Parliament and made a full-fledged minister. There is no other solution. This was what had to be done with the Seventh NFC, when then PM’s Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin had to be found a seat in the Senate and made Finance Minister. Ironically, he had been preceded by none other than Dr Sheikh, who had been found a Senate seat and made Finance Minister in the Gilani government. Additionally, an independent MNA has taken exception to the Balochistan member, former Minister of State Javed Jabbar, whose financial expertise is as murky as his connection to Balochistan.
Apart from these two objections, which will be shared by the other provinces, and which will probably end up before the Supreme Court for adjudication, another important question, which has still not been settled, is that of the 2017 census. The census is important to the NFC because, though no longer the sole basis of the distribution of the award between the provinces, it was still the primary basis in the last Award, and can be expected to form the primary basis in the present Commission’s deliberations. Its not being settled means that after the issue of the provincial-central split is settled, that of the provincial division will be left uncertain. The last general election was conducted on the basis of a delimitation based on the preliminary census results. At that time, it was decided that there would be selected audits of the result in Sindh, after which results would be given finality. Those audits never took place, and thus the population results have not been finalized.
The Sindh government is likely to be joined by other provincial governments in making objections. Other provinces may have other objections to make. The problem seems to have been the reluctance of the federal government to consult the opposition, or provinces, about anything. Initial soundings would have avoided some of the objections being made.
