ISLAMABAD: President Mohammadmian Soomro has notified the much-awaited new 10-member National Finance Commission (NFC) to ensure the equitable distribution of financial resources between the Centre and the four federating units.

Under the Constitution, the authority lies with the president to notify the constitution of the NFC.

The new NFC will be headed by Finance Minister Naveed Qamar and comprise the four provincial finance ministers, four private members each from every federating unit and one special member.

The four representatives are Dr Gulfraz Ahmad, who is to represent Balochistan, Saeed Qureshi, Punjab, Kaisar Bengali, Sindh and Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel will represent NWFP. Hina Rabbani Khar, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Economic Affairs, will be the special member of the new National Finance Commission.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Naveed Qamar, while taking to journalists outside parliament, said that the government would soon convene a meeting of the commission to resolve the issues to evolve new financial resources distribution formula. The poor provinces, such as Balochistan and NWFP, are pinning hopes on the new NFC to get their due share in the financial resources of the country, as the new coalition government seems keen on resolving the long-standing issues of the provinces.

The Mushrraf regime constituted the last NFC on July 21, 2005, but it failed to achieve consensus among the members on a mechanism for judicious resource distribution. The president was requested by the provinces to intervene and under Article 160(6) of the Constitution, he amended the “Distribution of Revenues and Grants In Aid Order, 1997” and implemented the new NFC award with effect from July 1, 2006.

Punjab expects that the new formula should be based on population. The other provinces are against the Punjab’s stance and they want to include revenue generation, poverty, population density, income distribution and backwardness as the basis for the new formula for the distribution of resources.