The fifth meeting of the 9th National Finance Commission (NFC) Award will be held in the provincial capital today (Friday) which will be chaired by Federal Finance Minister Asad Umar. The provincial finance ministers of all four provinces and their nominated non-statutory members, including Dr Salman Shah, Dr Asad Saeed, Mushraf Rasul, Mehfooz Ali Khan and other concern officials including Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will attend the meeting to brief the participants about the performance of the six working groups constituted for formulation of the Award, disclosed an official here on Thursday.
The meeting will be hosted by Punjab and it will suggest the micro-economic framework and suggest the revenue and expenditures principals for all the members and the federal government. In this connection, Punjab Finance Minister Makhdoom Jawan Bakhat Hashim chaired a meeting of the Working Group-I which was attended by the finance secretaries and representatives of all four provinces. The objectivity of the meeting was to brief the initial report of the Working Group-I to the members and give the replies to their objections.
The Punjab Finance Secretary gave a comprehensive briefing to the members about the proposed revenue collection and expenditures under the 9th NFC Award and noted their objections. The meeting also reviewed the preparation of the fifth meeting of the 9th NFC Award.
Addressing the meeting, the Punjab Finance Minister said that initiatives taken by the PTI government practically proved that provincial boundaries was only an administrative division while the role of each province was vital for the economic growth and prosperity of Pakistan. He further said that strong federation was the guarantee for the stability of the provinces and the recommendations of all members in the NFC Award were equally important.
He hoped that provinces kept in mind the issues of other provinces and federation in the formulation of the 9th NFC Award and respects the recommendations of each other.