President Human Rights Cell PPP former Senator Farhatullah Babar has issued the following statement today:
The silence by the Finance Ministry to the suggestions repeatedly being floated in the media to reduce the share of provinces in the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award is intriguing and calls for a firm rejoinder to dispel any misgivings in the provinces.
The desire to rollback NFC is rolling back 18th Constitutional Amendment and provincial autonomy has been the dream of undemocratic elements and centrists in the country for long.
The government needs to come out clean and declare in categorical terms that the provincial autonomy guaranteed will not be compromised.
The centrists accuse the provinces of ‘wasteful ‘expenditures claiming that there has been over four fold increase in their payroll expense while turning a blind eye to the profligate expenses of the federal government itself.
Since 2011 pensions and superannuation allowances of the federal government have increased by nearly seven fold. Today Rs 563 billion in military pensions and Rs 188 billion in civil pensions marks a phenomenal increase in federal government’s allocation under the head of pensions alone over the last 12 years.
There has also been an over 8 fold increase in the expenses of the executive and legislative branches of the federal government in addition to a similar increase in its current account expenditure during this period.
The NFC Award is not the cause of the federal government’s financial woes.
The real issues are the failure of the federal government to reform taxation policies, insistence on running ministries already devolved to provinces, inability to rationalize defence expenditure by cutting non combat expenditure and failure to prevent the massive transfer of resources to the elite.
The centrists should heed the UN report that privileges grabbed by the power elite exceed 17 billion dollars a year or six percent of the economy. They should call for putting the centre’s house in order rather than seeking to deprive the provinces of their rights.