Ayesha Ghaus chairs meeting before participation in 2nd meeting of 9th NFC Award

LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Finance Dr. Ayesha Ghaus Pasha Saturday presided over a meeting regarding preparation before participation in second meeting of 9th NFC Award.

The meeting was attended by Secretary Finance Hamid Yaqoob Sheikh, Special Secretary Saif Ullah Dogar, Deputy Secretary Budget Faisal Rasheed, Deputy Secretary Resources Masood Anwar and all concerned officers of the Finance department.

Special Secretary Saif Ullah Dogar told the meeting that a notice had been issued to all the provinces by Finance Division of federal government for participation in second meeting of National Finance Commission.

According to the notice, second meeting of NFC Award would be held on November 28, 2016 at NFC Secretariat, he added.

Chairmen or Secretaries of all the four working groups would present report of their respective working group in the meeting presided over by Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and apprise him of their views and reservations pertaining to reports of all the four groups, he said and added after that, reports would be discussed and in the end, monitoring report of enforcement of 7th NFC Award from January to June 2016 would be presented and future strategy evolved.

Dr. Ayesha Ghaus Pasha said that although this meeting had been convened on a very short notice, however, it was an important step towards 9th NFC Award therefore Punjab would participate in it.

She said the federal government would be requested to decide NFC Award in view of facts and figures presented by all the four working groups.

Furthermore, it should be kept in view while fixing the share in national finance commission that per head expenditure of Punjab was less than other provinces which should at least be brought at par with other provinces, she added.

She said that distribution of award should be made in the wake of increasing responsibilities of the provinces after 18th amendment so that they could provide best services to their people.

She said that attention should be paid to social sector in the field of subsidy so that prosperity could be brought in the life of common man.

She directed concerned officers to make achievements as a result of reforms in tax recovery system in Punjab regarding resource mobilization a part of the report.

She told the meeting that Punjab Revenue Authority had made record receipts of 22.87 billion rupees in initial four months of current financial year which was more than annual share given by the federation in 2011-12 to the provinces collected under the head of sales tax.