Tag: Provinces

LAHORE - Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has rolled up his sleeves to boost the thin taxbase. FBR is planning to gain complete access to the existing national and provincial databases to tap the tax potential. Meeting minutes of a recent broadening tax base (BTB) exercise show that FBR is seeking complete access to provincial land and properties records and vehicle registration and transfer transactions.
FBR is planning to establish retrievable access to existing databases,

ISLAMABAD - The devolution of the Ministry of Labour and Manpower will hit the poor labourers and the employees of the lower grades of smaller provinces, an official source told Pakistan Today.
"Several issues were not analyzed properly before the introduction of the 18th Amendment. For example, most of the revenue of the Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) is generated from Sindh and Punjab but larger part of the revenue goes to the small provinces of Balochistan and

KARACHI - All departments mentioned under the Concurrent List will be transferred to the provinces, it was pointed out during a meeting between Federal Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Raza Rabbani, Federal Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah at the Chief Minister's House on Saturday. According to an official handout, they discussed issues pertaining to transfer of powers from the federal government and inter-provincial problems after

KARACHI - All departments mentioned under the concurrence list will be transferred to the provinces, it was pointed out during a meeting between Federal Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister Raza Rabbani, Federal Petroleum Minister Naveed Qamar and Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah at the Chief Minister's House on Saturday. According to an official handout, they discussed issues pertaining to transfer of powers from the federal government and inter-provincial problems after

ISLAMABAD - Apart from rhetoric and media statements for public consumption, none of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) factions has yet taken any practical step for creation of new provinces. In recent past, though PML-Q, PML-F and PML Like-minded have been vociferously demanding creation of Saraiki Province, Hazara Province and restoration of Bahawalpur Province, but no serious effort was made by them to create any political consensus.
Background interviews and interactions with

ISLAMABAD - The provinces on Thursday refused to bear the expenses of national health programmes after the devolution of the Ministry of Health, endangering the programmes of lady health workers, polio, hepatitis control and seven others. The National Assembly Standing Committee on Health reviewed the state of affairs of the Ministry of Health after its devolution under the 18th Amendments in the presence of the secretaries for health of the four provinces, Azad Kashmir and

KARACHI - Demanding that there should be more provinces in Pakistan, MQM chief Altaf Hussain on Sunday said the creation of new provinces will strengthen the country instead of weakening it.
"The Hazara and Seraiki people are demanding new provinces. A referendum needs to be held on the issue," he said via telephone from London while addressing the largely attended 'Jalsa-e-Qaumi Yakjehti' (national solidarity public meeting). He also demanded the government should reduce its

KARACHI - A new social and political contract between the State and provinces is the need of the hour and the only way out of the myriad of societal problems that afflict the country today, claimed political leaders, intellectuals and civil society representatives at a seminar organised by the Indus People's Forum on Sunday titled 'Survival of the State: Ideology, Economy and Governance'.
"Religious extremism is being patronised within Pakistan," said National Party leader

ISLAMABAD - Disowned by the chief secretaries of all the four provinces, the employees of the devolved ministries of education, culture, social welfare and special education and livestock were placed in the 'surplus pool' by the Implementation Commission on Thursday.
Earlier, the chief secretaries had told the commission that they lacked resources to accommodate employees after the first phase of devolution, a source within the commission told Pakistan Today. Chaired by Chairman

ISLAMABAD - PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal on Sunday said the transfer of powers pertaining to the curriculum development to the provinces would fail the objective of a uniform syllabi and educational system.
"The educational system is controlled by the Centre in all countries of the world, as it helps promote national integrity. The PML-N dissented from the decision of transferring education to the provinces when the 18th Amendment was being finalised because we believe it would

KARACHI - The federal government, which is again haunted by soaring international oil prices that would increase the country's woes on the inflation and balance-of-payment fronts, has held the provinces responsible for the widening fiscal deficit.
The country is also faced with a longstanding challenge of circular debts which, the economic managers said, have again ballooned to Rs 300 billion due to power tariff differentials. The federal government in a bid to protect the

LAHORE - Punjab Governor Sardar Latif Khan Khosa has said that all dams, including Kalabagh, must be built, but after removing the reservations of all the provinces.
He was talking to media people during his first interaction with PPP beat reporters at the Governor's House on Thursday. He said the country was in dire need of new big water reservoirs but these should not be constructed at the cost of the national unity, but with the consensus of the provinces.
The governor,

ISLAMABAD: The government's plan to devolve 5 ministries to the provinces is likely to come undone as the Federal Education Ministry and the National Assembly Standing Committee on Education opposed the devolution under the 18th constitutional amendment in unison at a meeting of the of the committee on Tuesday, chaired by Member of the National Assembly Abid Sher Ali.
The chairman of the education committee directed the Education Ministry to submit a detailed proposal to it in

KARACHI: The Interior Ministry has directed Sindh's authorities to maintain a record of Chinese nationals, particularly investors working in different sectors in the province, so that measures could be taken for their security, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to sources in the Sindh government, the provincial governments of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have also been directed to update the entire record of Chinese nationals by the end of each month to ensure

LAHORE: South Asia Partnership called for a second day of their conference, where several speakers discussed the issue of sexual harassment, while the event was uplifted by plays. The session began with a an Oath taking ceremony, anchored by Naeema Malik (SAP), where the members along with the change makers, this time from all four provinces, signed a banner and pledged that they would continue forwarding the cause of ending violence against women.
The 'We Can End Violence

KARACHI: The Sindh government has decided that a letter with serious reservations would be sent to the federal government about the delay in the transfer of assets and funds of the five departments transferred to the provinces by the centre.
The decision was made in a meeting at the Chief Minister's House headed by Qaim Ali Shah. The meeting reviewed various matters related to the transfer of the five departments from the federal government in accordance with the 18th

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Education has termed the transfer of Education Ministry to provinces under the 18th amendment as a threat to Federation.
The committee that met here on Monday with its Chairman Abid Sher Ali in the chair, decided to send its recommendations to constitutional reforms committee to have a review of its decision to devolve the Education Ministry to the provinces and also to make them a part of 19th amendment.
The committee