Some disputes in Pakistan are lazily filed away as “provincial demands”. The assumption is familiar: one province is asking for more money, the federation is short of cash, and everyone will eventually settle for less than what was promised.

But the National Finance Commission issue raised by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the merger of FATA is not just another provincial quarrel over funds. It is a test of whether Pakistan takes its constitutional promises seriously, believes in fiscal federalism, and upholds the equality of all citizens before the law. And because the issue is of national finance, not enough people know enough about the issue to care. But they should.

When FATA was merged into KP through the 25th Constitutional Amendment, it was not presented as a favour to one province. It was sold, rightly, as a national act of integration. Parliament, the state, political parties and security institutions all endorsed the principle that millions of citizens who had lived for decades under an exceptional legal regime would finally be brought into the constitutional mainstream.

That phrase, “constitutional mainstream”, sounds noble. But it cannot mean only new police stations, new administrative titles and new slogans. It must also mean money. Development money. Governance money. Security money. Schools, hospitals, roads, courts, local governments, jobs and services. A merger without fiscal integration is not mainstreaming. It is paperwork.

This is where the NFC comes in. Under Article 160 of the Constitution, the NFC is the mechanism through which federal divisible pool resources are shared between the federation and the provinces, and then among the provinces.

The Constitution expects this arrangement to be reviewed every five years........

© The Friday Times