Finance Ministry has reminded the provincial governments that they are yet to nominate or reconfirm their non-statutory members for National Finance Commission (NFC) Award. Sources said that the present government is keen to initiate discussion on NFC award. Finance Minister Asad Umar has asked the provincial governments to reconfirm their nominations of non-statutory members for NFC as early as possible.
The finance minister also wrote letters to the provincial chief ministers on September 3, 2018 asking them to either re-confirm the nominations made by the previous governments or make fresh nominations so that the process for reconstitution of the 9th NFC could be completed. The Ministry of Finance has now reminded the provincial finance secretaries to make the requisite nominations, as so far none of the provincial governments have shared the names of their respective non-statutory members.
In terms of Clause (1) of article 160 of the Constitution, the 9th NFC award was constituted on April 24, 2015. Since new governments are in place both at federal and provincial levels after general election 2018, reconfirmation of the non-statutory members from the provinces is necessary.
The NFC is required to be set up at intervals not exceeding five years as required under clause (1) of the Article 160 of the Constitution and federal and provincial finance ministers are the statutory members of NFC and one non-statutory member from each province is nominated by the chief minister of respective province. The 9th NFC award has been hitting a deadlock since 2015.
The NFC is a constitutional body formed every five years that is tasked to determine the respective share of the federation and the provinces of the specified federal tax reverence.