June 12, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1424

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QUETTA, June 11: Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) workers held a protest procession on Wednesday condemning the federal government for ignoring the Pukhtun areas of Balochistan in allocation of development funds.

The protestors held a public meeting at the taxi stand where the speakers alleged that Punjab with the backing of army was looting the resources of the smaller provinces.

PMAP Secretary-General Akram Shah, Balochistan PMAP President Abdur Rauf and the party’s parliamentary leader in the provincial assembly, Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal spoke at the meeting.

The leaders said the federal government had allocated Rs416 billion in the budget for foreign debt servicing and defence but neither foreign loans were spent in Balochistan, Sindh and the NWFP, nor did they have any major representation in the army, so that allocation benefited Punjab.

They asserted that the federal government recovered major portion of the revenue from Sui gas in Balochistan, electricity production in the NWFP and customs duty at the Karachi port, but the funds were used for development in Lahore and on the armed forces.

They said the Pukhtuns in the northern areas of Balochistan were not against the big projects launched in the areas inhabited by the Baloch but such projects should also be undertaken in their areas.

They alleged that the provincial government had violated merit in recruitment.

They declared that the Pukhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party would not accept the Legal Framework Order as part of the Constitution as no military dictator could be permitted to distort the procedure for amending the Constitution.