Provincial share

THE PPP has aptly advised the central government to worry about improving its tax collection rather than eying the provinces’ share of tax revenues. Reacting to recent reports that the IMF wants Pakistan to restart discussions on the 2009 NFC award to correct the ‘imbalance’ in the centre-provinces distribution of tax resources, PPP Senator Sherry Rehman rejected suggestions that the global lender was interfering in the constitutional framework of resource allocation. “Why would the IMF want to put itself in the middle of changing the NFC formula of Pakistan?” she asked. Her reading of the situation is accurate. Even if the lender wants the provinces to reduce their expenditure to produce a fiscal surplus and share more financial responsibilities with the federation to narrow the nation’s burgeoning consolidated fiscal deficit, it would not want to be seen getting caught up in constitutional issues.