Karachi: inequitable NFC impact
BORN in the name of devolution, propagated as people’s rights, and celebrated as a victory for the deprived, the seventh National Finance Commission award has been nothing of the sort.…
Party politics and the NFC
TALK of amending the National Finance Commission (NFC) award is gathering pace once again. For several years, policymakers associated with the finance ministry, as well as political actors across different…
The fatal arithmetic of the NFC
In the corridors of Pakistan’s democracy, a silence has settled – one heavy with the weight of a republic slowly unravelling under the illusion of constitutional symmetry. We claim to…
Rolling back the NFC, again
Rolling back the NFC, againIT is getting boring now. Every so often the idea is floated that the government should roll back the provincial allocations under the seventh National Finance…
Making the NFC work
The recent demands from multilateral institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank to revisit the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award have ignited a fresh debate on resource distribution…
Attacking the NFC – again
The attacks on the 7th National Finance Commission Award continue relentlessly, even though all the technical arguments forwarded by apologists of centralization for reversing it have been soundly rebutted. Desperation,…
The NFC debate
Once again there is debate surrounding the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, driven by short-term fiscal concerns and external pressures. It is important to acknowledge the pivotal role the NFC…
NFC and fiscal equity
Initiated by the centre and fiercely contested by the provinces, the reallocation of the NFC comes under debate each time the annual budget is due or when a new federal…
An accountant’s approach to NFC?
A lot has been written recently about the need to revisit and reduce the share of the provinces in the 7th National Finance Commission Award, but sadly most of it…
NFC: call for fiscal reforms
In an analysis of the 7th NFC Award (‘Fiscal realities: A case for NFC reform’, March 20), published on these pages, I showed that provincial governments collect a small fraction…
