addressing a politicized elephant in the room
The provinces receive increasing transfers while the federation is under debt pressure, stabilization costs KARACHI: For decades, the National Finance Commission (NFC) award has been treated as a political taboo – too sensitive to touch, too convenient to exploit and too dangerous to reform. Every government officially acknowledges its structural distortions, only to postpone meaningful action in the name of “provincial harmony”. However, given the speedy delivery of recent constitutional amendments with “unprecedented unanimity”, the stage appears to be set to address the structural issues associated with the current award. At its core, the NFC Award governs how national income










