THROUGH a notification, the President has set up that primary organ of provincial empowerment under the Constitution, the Council of Common Interests, about a week after he notified the constitution of a new National Finance Commission, with which the CCI's work is also connected. It was expected that the next move on the provinces would have been a notification amending the NFC to include Shaukat Tarin, just elected to the Senate and thus now due for conversion from PM's Adviser to Minister by means of a fresh oath, but instead the CCI has been set up. Unfortunately, following the resignation of Senator Reza Rabbani as Inter-Provincial Coordination Minister, there is no head of the ministry that is supposed to act as the CCI's secretariat, but now that the federal government has nominated the PM (who will be the CCI's Chairman), and the federal Privatisation, Communications and Livestock Ministers, the Council is complete, along with the four provincial chief ministers. Though the CCI will thus consist of a further two PPP members, the other members are in alliance with the PPP at least in the province, and thus the new body is expected to be harmonious. However, the CCI's formation does not mean a solution to the problems that bedevil the federation because of interprovincial, or province-centre, rivalries, because the CCI is meant to administer those institutions which fall in the Federal List Part 2. In the main, these are institutions which were provincial under the 1962 Constitution, but became federal after the secession of East Pakistan. The CCI has not been often used as a forum, except to endorse NFC decisions, and to make enabling decisions for it. Clearly, the CCI is being seen as again a forum of this sort, and this might give an indication of where the NFC is expected to go. However, once it meets, maybe the CCI will generate a dynamic that will produce surprising results.