THE relationship between the centre and the provinces is once again in the limelight as the PTI government takes a slow start on its engagement with the federating units.
The two sides have competing interests in terms of power and jurisdiction over fiscal and natural resources.
The PTI was not able to hold even a single meeting of the National Finance Commission (NFC) in more than a year to deliberate over the next NFC award on the sharing of divisible-pool revenues. As such, the 7th NFC award announced with consensus in 2010 for five years is extended on annual basis.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has not been able to hold a meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) since December 23, 2019 despite a mandatory constitutional requirement under Article 154 (3) that the body must meet at least once in every 90 days. By now, the CCI should have been preparing for its third meeting. But then the prime minister had called even the last huddle after a gap of more than a year.No wonder then the provinces are taking the lead. When the CCI hopefully meets on Aug 6 after a gap of almost 225 days, the agenda will be heavily tilted in favour of the provinces. In the six-point agenda, four summaries have been moved by the provinces — three by Sindh and one by Punjab.
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