June 04, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1427

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QUETTA, June 3: Balochistan Chief Minister Jam Mir Mohammad Yousuf has said his government has no differences with coalition partner MMA and if the alliance has any reservation on some issues it can be removed through negotiations.

He was talking to journalists at his chamber after a session of the Balochistan Assembly on Saturday.

He said negotiations of provincial MMA leaders on their demands, including the issue of religious educational certificates, with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and National Security Council secretary-general Tariq Aziz were in progress. He said most of their demands related to the federal government.

Replying to a question, he admitted that the province was short of development funds.

Mr Yousuf said Balochistan was facing financial crisis because its share in gas royalty had been reduced to Rs1.5 billion due to reduction in gas production as a result of blasting of gas pipelines in the province.

About the NFC award, he said the provinces could not reach a consensus on the NFC formula and every province wanted distribution of resources according its own proposed formula.

He said backwardness of an area should also be included as a factor for distributing resources. He said the NWFP government also wanted distribution of resources on the basis of backwardness of an area.

The chief minister said Balochistan’s share was increased in the new NFC award and it would now get more funds.

He said 35 per cent of funds of the PSDP had been allocated for federal government-funded development projects in Balochistan.

Replying to a question, he said Balochistan was paying heavy interests on loans taken from the federal government and recently it had to obtain soft loan from the Asian Development Bank to repay centre’s loans. He said the president had recently written off Rs6 billion loans pending against farmers of the province.

He said Balochistan would soon get Rs1 billion Kuwait fund, which would be spent on electrification of villages in the province.

Mr Yousuf said that under a programme launched by the federal government to eliminate unemployment in the province, unemployed youths would be provided with soft loans for starting business.