Asad Umar chairs NFC meeting

LAHORE, Mar 29 (APP):Federal Finance Minister Asad Umar on Friday chaired the 5th meeting of 9th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award here at Civil Secretariat.
The six sub-groups, formulated during the first meeting in February, gave presentation on various aspects of resources distribution as per the terms of reference assigned to the groups. The main focus of all sub-groups’ deliberations was transparency, harmonisation and sharing of data.
The members of the Commission appreciated the work done by the six sub-groups in their first meetings. It was agreed that the sub-groups would continue their deliberations and present their reports in the subsequent meetings.
Asad Umar, the chairman, suggested that deliberations should also include incentives for poverty alleviation and social sector spending.
The representative of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government proposed a framework for NFC deliberations aiming at equalising fiscal resources across federating units, equal access to public services for all citizens of Pakistan and expenditure efficiency at all levels of the federation. All members agreed on the framework and lauded the efforts of the KPK government in this regard.
The chairman emphasised the importance of a well-deliberated and consensus-based NFC Award and said that all federating units shared a huge responsibility in that regard.
The meeting also agreed on making efforts to finalise the NFC Award by December 31, 2019. It was also agreed upon to hold the next meeting before end of April 2019, which would focus on FATA and the taxation aspects of ease-of-doing business.
The chairman reiterated that provincial governments would be engaged in the fiscal related discussion with the IMF. He also suggested that each federating unit should nominate a focal person for data sharing to facilitate the working sub-groups.
He stressed the need for strengthening the NFC Secretariat and said that necessary measures would be taken in that regard. Technical members from Sindh and KPK volunteered to submit a proposal in this regard.