ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will chair a meeting of the National Finance Commission on Monday (today) only a third in 20 months in the absence of at least three provincial finance ministers.

The meeting comes amid provincial demands for more power and resources. The Constitution requires the commission to submit two progress reports every year to parliament. The commission is also required to finalise its biannual report for the period ending June 30, 2016 and deliberate on four studies conducted by expert groups constituted by the 9th NFC at its first meeting held in April 2015.

A key centre-provincial forum to hammer out financial matters, the NFC consists of five finance ministers one federal and four provincial and four non-statutory members representing the provinces, under Article 160 of the Constitution. Clause 3(b) of this article requires the five ministers to monitor the implementation of the NFC award and submit reports biannually.

Sources told Dawn that chief ministers of Balochistan and Sindh who also hold the finance portfolios of their provinces would not be attending the meeting.

The chief minister of Balochistan is currently visiting Hong Kong, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister Said Muzaffar is also abroad. However, before leaving, he reportedly said he would stay away from the meeting as he was not provided the files and material related to the agenda items.

While Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah is also expected to skip the meeting, a Sindh government of ficial said private member Senator Saleem Mandviwala would represent the province at the meeting on Monday. He will be assisted by Finance Secretary Hasan Naqvi and Special Secretary Dr Noor Alam. KP`s non-official member Prof Mohammad Ibrahim and theprovincial finance secretary would represent the province.

The meeting comes at a time when the provinces have already laid down their demands for greater financial autonomy and more resources, amid the Centre`s advocacy for a `re-balancing` of responsibilities and resources, as advised by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The conflicting demands would be examined on the basis of four studies by provincial expert groups on revenue and expenditure projections, the shift in ground realities such as devolution and responsibilities, borrowing powers and arrangements for provinces, how to increase taxes and how the security situation has put an additional burden on the federal government Sources said Sindh was now seeking a fixed financial share starting with 5pc of the total divisible pool resources for security expenditure, as long as it was hosting the Rangers for the Karachi operation on the existing principle of a 1pc share to KP. It has also demanded powers to collect royalty on oilandgasproductionandisaskingforjurisdiction over the collection of general sales tax on goods, as well the GST on services. It is also demanding jurisdiction over the capital gains tax.

Balochistan will make a case for at least 5pc of all investments and resultant revenues from China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), besides pushing its longstanding demand for more weightage for geographical area in the revenue-sharing arrangement with provinces.

An official from the KP government said the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf was seeking a change in the revenue distribution formula among the provinces by reducing the weightage for population to 60pc, giving 15pc weightage to poverty and the remaining share to all other factors.

A Sindh government official welcomed the NFC meeting, but said the federal government was deviating from the constitutional spirit of biannual sessions to finalise reports for parliament. He conceded that while the commission had met in Lahore a few months ago, it did not make a substantial contribution over the three studiesbyexpertgroups.

A federal government of ficial, however, said there was no constitutional violation as far as biannual reports to parliament were concerned because the reports were regularly being sent to parliament with the signatures of provincial members.

The government has been continuing with the 7th NFC award, whose five-year constitutional term expired on June 30 last year. It has been blaming the provinces for a second extension of the award to 2009, saying the new NFC is to be based on a series of studies assigned to the provinces, which have only been complete d recently.

Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had submitted their reports more than a year ago but Punjab`s report came last month, an of ficial said.

The sources saidthatthe NFC meeting on Monday would set the tone movingtowards the next award for the distribution of divisible pool taxes over the next five years. They said the Centre was seeking increasedfocusonresource mobilisation and strengthening of relations between the federation and the provinces.

The Centre also wants the provinces to share the responsibility of war on terrorism, natural disasters and the needs of special areas like the state of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, GilgitBaltistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas.