NFC's tough assignment.

AFTER much beating about the bush, it has been admitted that the federation is broke and that it cannot make two ends meet without getting a hefty cut from the provinces' share of the divisible pool.

All responsible citizens will be worried at the economic plight of the federation and they would wish for a fair and happy resolution of the matter so that the centre's problems are eased as far as possible and the federating units are not deprived of resources they cannot afford to part with.

This is a serious and highly sensitive issue and every effort should be made to arrive at a fair consensus. The federation should seek a mutually acceptable settlement with the units and avoid imposing its will on them. That in any case will be disastrous as the provinces are neither the federation's colonies nor its vassals.

The federation has generated an unnecessary though highly dangerous controversy in the way the president was advised to create a new National Finance Commission. The objection to the nomination of the adviser on Finance as NFC chairman is valid for he is not answerable to parliament. He may be a genius in financial jugglery but the Constitution wants the minister for finance to head the NFC and nobody else can replace him.

The agenda is apparently to undo the NFC Award of 2010.

Similarly, the way the provinces' non-official representatives have been selected has given rise to misgivings. True, Article 160 of the Constitution allows the president to name a provincial representative in consultation with the governor, but the governor is required under Article 105 to act on the advice of the provincial ministry. Appointment of an NFC member is not like hiring a manservant. The correct procedure is that a resolution should be adopted by the provincial cabinet, advising the governor to recommend that so and so should be named to the NFC, and all this in writing. It is necessary to assure the people that this procedure has indeed been followed. In such sensitive matters, the federation must not only act honestly it should also be seen to have acted honestly.

Suspicions that the centre is up to harming the provinces' interests have been raised by the new NFC's agenda. The federation's new or increased burdens include expenditures on erstwhile Fata as well as Gilgit-Baltistan, security and debt-servicing. The federal expenditure on the Fata districts should have come down after their merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the expenditures on...