ISLAMABAD:
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government on Tuesday told the Center that it may file a petition in the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) against all parties for not giving their due due to the merger of 6.1 million tribal districts with the province.
KP Chief Minister Sohail Afridi raised the issue during his meetings with the Federal Finance Minister and the Planning Minister. The other three provinces last week refused to support the National Finance Commission (NFC) interim award that the KP had demanded in lieu of the merger of tribal districts since 2018.
According to a statement issued by the Finance Ministry after the meeting, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb assured the Chief Minister of his full support in resolving all legitimate issues. The ministry said Aurangzeb held the meeting “in a cordial and constructive atmosphere”.
Afridi met Aurangzeb a day after heads of all governments, the president and military leaders held a meeting to tackle the fuel crisis. The chief minister briefed the finance minister on various economic and financial issues facing the province, the finance ministry said.
During the meeting, officials close to the discussions said the KP chief minister raised the issue of increasing provincial share in the NFC due to merger of new districts. He said that if KP was not compensated, he could take the matter to the FCC, the officials said.
They said the Minister of Finance responded that he would come back to the provincial government after consultations.
The KP Finance Minister had also written a letter to Aurangzeb last week, informing him of the provincial government’s decision to withdraw from the NFC deliberations until the issue of merged districts is resolved. The Ministry of Finance acknowledged receipt of the letter.
The KP government expects its share in the NFC to increase from 14.62% to 18.96% after the merger of the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in 2018. Last week, Dr Asad Sayyed, Sindh member of the 11th NFC, while speaking to The Express PK Press Club, said that Sindh would not support the KP government’s bid for an interim award of the NFC.
The 11th commission is currently working to finalize a new consensual formula for the distribution of resources between the Center and the four federated units. The seventh prize was finalized in 2010.
The provincial representative made the statement after the KP accused the three provinces of reneging on their earlier commitments to allocate additional resources to the merged districts. The provincial government linked its future participation in the NFC negotiations to the convening of the main meeting of the NFC and the consideration of this new burning issue.
Under the 25th Constitutional Amendment of 2018, the tribal districts were merged into KP, which increased the provincial population by at least 6.1 million. KP is demanding an increase in its share in NFC and payment of around Rs980 billion in arrears since 2018 through interim compensation.
Asad Sayyed said the Sindh government would not support any attempt to pay the arrears from an earlier date. “We are ready to consider the newly merged districts under the 11th NFC award,” he added.
The Punjab government also said last week that the 11th NFC did not have the mandate to issue an interim award. He was also of the opinion that the shares of the provinces guaranteed by the Constitution could not be changed retrospectively.
The KP government also asked the Center to compensate it financially until a consensus is reached among all parties. The KP’s stand on demanding additional resources was close to the federal government’s stand which wants the provinces to help meet the expenses of erstwhile FATA, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan by allocating their shares in the new NFC.
Currently, the federal government provides grants to KP to cover these expenses, but the provincial government believes that the annual grants are much lower than the actual expenses.
The KP chief minister also raised the issue of reducing payments to the province due to hydel net profit. The provincial government informed the finance minister that compared to Punjab, KP gets a lesser share. He claimed that in the last financial year, Punjab received around Rs 65 billion in net hygiene benefit as compared to Rs 36 billion paid to KP.
The KP government also demanded an additional Rs 15 billion to cover expenses related to internally displaced people affected by military operations against terrorists. The Minister of Finance assured that he would examine these requests.
“Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to assisting provincial governments in meeting their financial challenges,” the official document said.
