Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister of Punjab, during his recent statement in Sukkur has strangely claimed that Punjab has sacrificed for Sindh more than Rs 10 billions in the last NFC Award. Earlier, I have also seen Shahbaz Sharif’s statement on a private TV channel using highly furious language claiming what has been done with Punjab so far, if he were to tell that, there would be chaos in the country.
First of all, I would advise Sharif brothers to immediately stop false claims as this unjustified trend resulted in a loss of more than half the country in the past due to unjustified policies of Punjab-backed establishment.
It was fact, when East Pakistan was with us, Punjab was against the distribution of NFC Award on population-base as sole criteria but when East Pakistan separated, Punjab turned the table and became champion of sole criteria of population based NFC Award for years. In the last Award, only five percent weightage was given to the revenue generation, thus Award was a farce as far as Sindh was concerned. Sindh contributes about 70 percent into Divisible Revenue Pool and in return gets meagre amount.
However, Punjab got included an article in the 18th amendment that says that the income from any province in the NFC Award cannot be reduced in future. I advise Mr Shahbaz Sharif to visit BBC website that says Punjab’s claim for loss in NFC is totally wrong. It was only the federal government that surrendered its 10 percent share. Therefore, Shahbaz Sharif’s claim is highly exaggerated.
Further, I may remind Mr Shahbaz that when Nawaz Sharif was prime minister twice (a total period of six years), he did not launch/complete any mega development programme in Sindh. Instead, he abolished two mega development projects, Keti Bunder Project and Thar Coal launched by Benazir Bhutto.
MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL
Karachi