Security Fund move finds no favour with provinces

Provinces are not expected to agree to the federal government''s proposal to allocate from the federal divisible pool an additional 3 % to the Centre for meeting security expenses. Qaisar Bengali, the member of NFC Balochistan government asserted that "there was no such proposal on the agenda and media reports in this regard are factually incorrect".
He clarified that the proposal was a component of the report submitted by the federal government during Monday''s meeting (all provinces excepting Balochistan also submitted a report) and was not put up for any discussion. Bengali added that the federal government can not reduce the share of provinces as the constitution disallows it and therefore the proposal to allocate an additional 3 percent to the Centre was regarded by the provinces as a move to take away resources from the provinces.
"No province, not even Punjab, is likely to agree to this proposal" he said adding that Ayesha Ghaus Pasha, Finance Minister Punjab was the most aggressive in terms of increasing the provincial share from divisible pool during Monday''s meeting. Senator Saleem Mandviwala, an NFC member from Sindh, confirmed that "there was no such proposal of 3 percent formally presented for discussion." He said that everyone in the meeting was of the view that estimates - budget deficit or tax collection - should be realistic because at the end of the day unrealistic estimates negatively impact on all.
Member NFC of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government Professor Ibrahim Khan said the provinces want an increase in their share from the divisible pool especially after the 18th Constitutional Amendment. The reason, he said, was the 18th Constitutional Amendment had shifted more responsibilities to the provinces.
Member NFC refrained from commenting on 3 percent security allocation to the centre from the divisible pool because "the proposal was not formally shared with the members". However, he said, as KP province is a frontline province against the war on terror the provincial government is arguing for an increase in its share of the war on terrorism in the next NFC award. At present, the KP government is allocated one percent of the divisible pool under the head of war on terror. "We want some changes in the distribution formula because of huge weight of the population. 82.3 percent population weight in distribution formula is unfair and KPK would contest that share and argue that allocations for poverty and backwardness must be increased," member KPK further maintained. Finance Minister Punjab Dr Ayesha Ghaus could not be reached for her comments.