PESHAWAR: Punjab is not willing to concede to the NWFP demand of even 2.5 per cent subvention from the federal divisible pool as compensation for its suffering from acts of terrorism and militancy in the 7th award of the National Finance Commission (NFC).
The sources told The News that the NWFP has given up its earlier claim of 10 per cent from the divisible pool for the “war on terror” being fought on its soil and has brought down its demand to only 2.5 per cent as “war on terror” subvention. They claimed that at the Karachi meeting of the NFC all other federating units, including finance minister of the Punjab, agreed to the NWFP demand, but technical member of the Punjab, former secretary finance Mirza Abdul Ghafoor, opposed it and told the meeting that he would consult his “elders” on the issue.
The sources privy to the NFC meetings also said that the federal government had shown willingness to pay one per cent of the total divisible pool to the NWFP as “war on terror” subvention, but the Frontier has yet to accept it.
When contacted, the acting central president of Awami National Party (ANP) and provincial member on the NFC, Haji Mohammad Adeel conceded difficulties in getting “war on terror” subvention and said that the province’s team had girded up to pursue the matter vigorously at the Lahore meeting being held on the December 9-10.
He said the NWFP was in a state of war and it had suffered hundreds of billions rupees losses in the ongoing militancy and subsequent operations, besides the loss of hundreds of precious lives, but it was now being promised only one per cent of the total divisible pool as war subvention. It is just a few billions rupees, which are not even sufficient for the compensations to the heirs of the victims of the militancy, he added.
He hoped that the Lahore meeting would prove to be a fresh start for the NWFP and other provinces, including Punjab, would feel the pain the NWFP had been going through. Haji Adeel said that presently Punjab was getting 80 per cent of the divisible pool on account of population and “we hope the Punjab would agree to 70-75 per cent weightage for the population in order to contain other provinces’ demands such as backwardness, area, etc.” He said the rest 25-30 per cent of the provincial share would be divided on the basis of poverty, backwardness and Human Development Index (HDI), areas and revenue collection.
About the pre-NFC demands of the province, he said they have already brought the “go-slow” on the matter into the notice of President Zardari and asked him to act on the demands of the NWFP the federal government has acknowledged earlier. He said that in their last week meeting with the president they urged Zardari to issue presidential order for the payment of Rs100 billion of the net hydel power profit arrears.
“We also asked the federal government to form a technical committee for determining the modus operandi for the payment of the remaining Rs180 billion of the net hydel power profit,” Muhammad Adeel said.
The ANP leader said the president assured them that the committee would meet soon after the Lahore meeting of the NFC to take up the matter. He said they also reminded the president of the federal government’s pledge to withdraw all cases and urged him to direct the Wapda to take back all the cases it instituted against the net hydel power profit payment in the courts.
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