Provinces fail to transfer funds to districts: Mustafa Kamal

MQM-P proposes disbursing local bodies’ share through NFC

KARACHI: Federal Health Minister and Muttahida Qaumi Movement Pakistan (MQM-P) leader Mustafa Kamal shared key features of his party’s draft constitutional amendment, proposing the disbursement of districts’ shares through the National Finance Commission (NFC) as the provinces failed to transfer funds to local bodies.

He was addressing a gathering held at the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industries on Monday.

Kamal said regional autonomy comes when all stakeholders are empowered and autonomous decision-making powers are devolved from the chief minister to union council chairmen.

He said that there is a mechanism for disbursing funds from the federal government to the provinces, but no mechanism for transferring funds from provinces to local bodies.

“It’s up to a person’s will to either grant Rs1,000 billion to someone or to grant nothing to another.”

He highlighted that Article 140a of the Constitution stressed the devolution of political, administrative, and financial powers to elected local representatives.

“Every CM interprets this according to his own will,” the health minister said.

MQM-P leader said, “Our party held deliberations and drafted a constitutional amendment to propose some structural reforms in the NFC divisible pool.”

Kamal maintained that the constitutional amendment draft prepared by his party proposed disbursing the shares of districts and local bodies through the same mechanism used to transfer federal funds to the provinces.

“We want to add the districts in the central divisible pool of the NFC as the provinces are, so the local bodies may get their shares directly from federal government without the intervention of provinces.”

The former mayor of Karachi lamented that his tenure as the mayor ended in 2010; however, the local bodies election held in 2015 was held on the orders of the Supreme Court.

He criticised the then-provincial government for running the affairs of a metropolitan city through a government-appointed administrator rather than a people-elected mayor.

“Can you imagine cities like New York or Shanghai even running for five days without a mayor?” he boasted.

The minister said Karachi was among the 12 rapidly developing cities when he was the mayor.

“I feel saddened by the current situation of this city, as Karachi has now become one of the four worst cities to live in.” Kamal said, “I have said multiple times on the floor of the parliament that the IMF cannot lift our country from this economic quagmire, but Karachi can.” Staff Report