ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to convene a meeting of the National Finance Commission in the last week of November to move forward on next award for distribution of divisible pool taxes among provinces and the Centre for the next five years, a media report said.
A meeting presided over by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar made this decision. The meeting reviewed the progress so far achieved by the working groups.
The decision came after provinces have demanded the Centre to transfer the control over collection of royalties on oil and gas produced in their areas.
Sindh says Centre should surrender its right to collect royalties on oil and gas and sales tax on goods.
Finance Minister stressed the need to enhance efforts at federal and provincial levels, to increase revenue mobilisation in order to spur economic growth. As initial work has been completed, it’s time to move to the next steps for completion of the award, he said.
He called for increased focus on resource mobilisation and strengthening of relations between the federation and provinces to achieve national harmony and partnership on the path to development and progress.
He directed the relevant federal ministries to complete inter-ministerial consultation on recommendations of the four working groups by the end of next week. He also directed that the next NFC meeting should be convened by the end of this month.
Earlier, Sindh’s member on NFC Senator Saleem Mandviwalla in a statement said the provinces would write a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to convene a meeting on new NFC award at the earliest. He demanded that the Centre should surrender the right to collect royalties on oil and gas and sales tax on goods to the provinces.
Sindh’s member said that the provinces should be given the right of collecting sales tax on goods because it was their basic right which was being denied even after the passage of the 18th Amendment.
