KARACHI: The Sindh government will place its demand to hand over gas infrastructure cess to provinces in the upcoming National Finance Commission (NFC) meeting in Islamabad.
This was stated by the Advisor to the Sindh Chief Minister (CM) for Information, Murtaza Wahab, while talking to media persons at Sindh Assembly on Monday.
The advisor said that the Sindh government had not received any official information from the federal government in this regard up to now, but they had learned through media reports that the NFC meeting had been scheduled in Islamabad on February 6.
“We welcome this and demand that more resources be provided to provinces in the new NFC Award under Article 160 of the Constitution,” he said while adding that the Sindh CM had convened the preparatory meeting on the matter on Monday to strongly present its case in the meeting.
He said that both the Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) governments had demanded to transfer gas infrastructure cess to provinces in the past and hoped that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) would support their instance on cess now.
He further said that the federal government had failed to meet its tax collection targets and that negative growth had been seen in tax collection. “We would also demand the authority of collection of sales tax on goods to Sindh so that revenue generation could be made effectively,” he added.
He said that Sindh Revenue Board had effectively performed its job for the last seven years and met all its targets.
Wahab also observed that the federal government had failed to meet revenue targets and now was favouring the elite class, adding that the PTI was not serious in having a discussion on the mini-budget as it had deferred the discussion.
He said that it was for the first time in the last eight years that load shedding had been reported in the winter season, adding that there was no gas and no water either.
Wahab appealed to Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan and other PTI leaders not to issue mere political statements and try to deliver on its promises made to the people instead.
To a question regarding the PTI’s demand of the Sindh IG’s removal, he said that the federal government had no power to remove the IG Police and that he could only be posted and transferred through a consultative process between the federal and provincial governments.
Murtaza Wahab condemned the attack on PTI MPA Ramzan Ghanchi and added that the Sindh government believed that every illegal action was condemnable.
