Issues galore: New govt to be hard pressed from day one

From Aslam Marwat

PESHAWAR: The newly elected governments at center as well as at provincial level will be in tight squeeze in the coming days as there are many financial challenges.

The electricity profit case, restarting of sick industrial units, development budget, law and order problem, less revenue generation and low taxes recovery and Kalabagh dam are the issues to be faced.

The federal government has to pass new NFC (National Finance Commission) award, to minimise the budget and trade deficit, to maintain export import balance, meeting the revenue targets and the creation of the favourable conditions for the investment are the challenges the new government has to tackle.

The political parties are busy as bee for the formation of new governments in the center and the four provinces of the country. These parties have held various corner and secret meetings to win their supporters for the formation of government.

Whichever party forms the government in the NWFP it has to do away with many problems.

The case regarding profit over electricity has yet to be decided between the provincial government, center and WAPDA.

Moreover, there are more than hundreds of sick industrial units which need to be reopened through pumping heavy funds by central government.

Owing to decrease in the development budget, many projects are in doldrums in the province and the new government will also face the law and order problem.

The operation is still going on in the tribal area.

On one hand, the provincial departments are not meeting the revenue targets being given by the Treasury Department and provincial government, but on the other hand the government has approved the up-gradation of the pay scales for teachers, district police officers, accounts officers, patwaris and clerks.

Moreover, the provincial government has also granted packages for the secretariat employees and the government's exchequer will be under heavy financial burden. In this regard, the federal government has not provided any relief to the provincial government.

The provincial government of NWFP has to take the burden on its own. The federal government will have to agree the four federating units on the new NFC formula.

The Frontier and Balochistan are the poorest, Sindh generates more revenue, Punjab is the most populated province and Balochistan province has more landmass. The NFC award has not yet been passed due to bickering among the four provinces over the formula.

The federal government has huge budget deficit, Federal Board of Revenue has collected Rs509 billion of revenue in the first six months of the year and the federal government has fixed target of Rs1025 for the year 2007/2008.

The targets of exports and imports are 19.2 billion dollars and 32 billion dollars respectively. The import is more than target while export is dwindling.

To arrest this declining trend, the federal government has to take strong measures.