KARACHI, April 11: As Pakistan People’s Party has emerged as a common force at federal and provincial levels political activists are expressing the hope that a consensus National Finance Commission award would be announced soon for a just and fair distribution of resources among all constituents of Pakistan’s federation.

Resource distribution is one of the thorny issues in Pakistan as population has been made the only criterion and other factors, like poverty ratio, tax generation, size of the province and economic backwardness, have totally been ignored.

Federalisation of sales tax is the other issue that is generating a lot of heat as universally it is a provincial and local tax.

Provinces also want an adequate representation in administration and management of hydel electricity, oil and gas and port and also a just and fair share in profits and other resources.

A consensus of all members of the NFC, drawn from the federal and provincial governments, is a prerequisite for the adoption of a formula.

Owing to this condition, two national finance commissions, formed since 1999 when General Musharraf took over as the chief executive and then as the president, failed to give any award.

Finally in 2006, President Musharraf gave an award in which population remains the single criterion for distribution of federal pool of taxes.

“Obviously, the NFC is on top of our agenda,” Murad Ali Shah, a PPP minister who took oath on Friday, informed Dawn over telephone.

He was hopeful of a consensus formula within a short time as PPP is now a common party in the federal and all four provincial governments.

Politicians in Karachi believe that the next budget for 2008-09 would be drawn on the controversial resource distribution formula given by President Pervez Musharraf as there is virtually very little time to constitute the NFC, likely to be headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar with finance ministers of all four provinces and one private member each from every province.

For the last two years (2006-07 and 2007-08), provincial budgets are being framed on the basis of resources being made available under Musharraf’s formula.

The year 2008-09 will be the third consecutive year when provinces would be asked to prepare their respective budgets on the basis of Musharraf’s controversial formula.

Each year, during budget presentation in 2006-07 and 2007-08, the opposition members of all the four provincial assemblies had called it un-constitutional.

“This year in June, the Sindh budget will be taken as a temporary arrangement, till the formation of a commission and announcement of an award,” a PPP worker said.

How explosive and burning issue the NFC is can be understood by the fact that the Sindh Assembly in January 2003 passed a unanimous resolution which stipulated every province should contribute resources in federal pool according to its population.

All parties in the Sindh Assembly voted for this resolution.

In the present arrangement, the federal government collects taxes from all the provinces but distributes on the basis of population.

Punjab gets 56 per cent, Sindh 23 per cent, NWFP 16 per cent and Balochistan only seven per cent.

Sindh is generating more than 68 per cent of total taxes, but gets only 23 per cent.

Balochistan has been denied its share in gas revenue and the NWFP in hydel electricity profits.