ISLAMABAD -  The Senate on Friday announced its six-member panel to represent the House of Federation in the Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly.

Before the Upper House was prorogued by the Deputy Chairman Maulana Ghafoor Hairderi, Secretary Senate Amjad Pervez Malik made the announcement about formation of the panel.

He said that the panel of six members was elected through secret ballot and being sent to the Speaker National for the notification.

Those who have been elected as new members of the Public Accounts Committee from the Senate included Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed to represent Federal Capital Islamabad, Chaudhry Tanveer Khan (Punjab), Senator  Sherry Rehman (Sindh), Senator Azam Khan Swati (KP), Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri (Balochistan) and Senator Hadaitullah Khan (FATA).

The development comes after continued efforts by the members of the Senate especially since Mian Raza Rabbani was elected as Chairman of the Upper House.

The size of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will now rise to 30 members after addition of six members’ panel from the Senate.

Earlier, while winding up the discussion on announcement of new National Finance Commission (NFC),  Minister of State for High Education and Technical Training Balighur Rehman informed the House that KP is being paid additional one per cent from the existing NFC Award on account of  being frontline province in the war against terror.

He further said that new NFC award will be announced within three to six months as the population and Housing Census will also be commenced from March this year.

“The new NFC will be constituted after national consensus,” the minister said and added that the 9th five-year NFC award announced in 2010 will continue till 2020.

Members who took part in the discussion demanded announcement of the new NFC award without further delay with new benchmarks included in the existing formula so that all the provinces get due share in the national income.

Those who spoke on the motion moved by Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar  to discuss 2nd biannual monitoring report on the implementation of National Finance Commission Award (January-June 2016) laid in the House today, included Azam Khan Swati, Salim Mandwiwala, Taj Haider, and Usman Kakar.

The House also referred a calling attention notice to standing committee on education moved by Senator Ayesha Raza Farooq in which she said that existing mechanism of granting equivalence certificates to O and A level students by the Inter Board Committee of Chairmen (IBCC) is discriminatory and has adverse effects on those students while applying for high studies in the country.