Lack of good governance eats into Balochistan’s Rs1.5tr share in NFC Award

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan’s increased share of Rs1,500 billion in the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award has gone down the drain, as the province is yet to improve governance.

The deterioration in governance could be gauged from the fact that the provincial government has recruited over 206,000 peons and watchmen in the past 10 years putting a huge strain on the provincial kitty.

“The fiscal space made available to Balochistan has proved a curse rather than blessing mainly because of a lack of good governance. The pension liability alone has gone up from Rs290 million per annum to Rs28.5 billion in last 10 years in the aftermath of 7TH NFC Award. Despite all this mess, things are still manageable, as we have set the right direction,” Balochistan’s Secretary Finance Noor Ul Amin Mengal said while addressing a national conference on the NFC arranged by the Policy Research Institute of Market Economy (PRIME) here on Tuesday.

Renowned economist Dr Waqar Ahmed said the province obtained a total share of Rs1.5 trillion in last 10 years under the NFC arrangement.

He said NFC was not the forum for undertaking accountability, as there were other forums to move on this subject.

Mengal said resource availability was not the issue but the province faced governance problems. “If the province is provided with Rs5,000 billion, even then it cannot solve its problems, he added. He said deficit had touched Rs94 billion, as sweepers and peons were recruited to balloon the expenditure side. “Our concern is a lack of governance and we should focus on it,” he added.

Dwelling on the CPEC, he said out of $60 billion portfolio, Balochistan’s share stood at $2 billion and only Rs100 million was utilised so far.

He said the share of the province was jacked up from 5 percent to 9.1 percent under the 7th NFC Award and it was protected during all this period.

He demanded that the province be given its share prior to the Federal Divisible Pool (FDP) and granted compensation on Gas Development Surcharge (GDS) on account of utilizing gas resources having worth of Rs7 trillion.

Now the focus, he said, would be on the Balochistan Revenue Authority (BRA) to stand on our feet, as the province possessed immense potential keeping in view the upcoming expected economic activities in Gwadar port city and other coastal areas.

Dr Kaiser Bengali said governance could not be improved in the province due to the existing fragmented political system. He said there was no base of economy in the province so the government recruited people to give them some substance of necessity of life.

Bengali recalled when he was serving as advisor to the Balochistan chief minister he had prepared a report on one department and the minister concerned had told the CM that he should not bother about intervening into the affairs of his ministry’s department.

He said all top level bureaucrats did not belong to the province. He said out of 41 divisions at the federal level, at least 10 divisions were completely redundant.

The purpose of the conference was to highlight constraints and implications of NFC on fiscal federalism.

Reputed researchers read their papers on different facets of the NFC. High officials from the federal and provincial finance ministries spoke at the conference and elaborated their governments’ NFC stance.

Two sessions of the conference were chaired by Dr. Kaiser Bengali and Shimail Daud, President of PRIME.