PESHAWAR, June 18: The Awami National Party has expressed concern over the presentation of a deficit budget by the MMA government for a province “replete with natural resources”.

“The government has indicated loan of international creditors under the head of income, which is a pack of lies,” said ANP’s provincial president Afrasiab Khattak. He said it was premature to claim that the international creditors would indeed extend a loan.

In a statement issued here on Monday, he said the budget contained a deficit of Rs5.489billion and the government had not explained how the gap would be bridged, adding that there seemed to be no realistic way to fill it.

He said many people in the NWFP and Fata had been living below the poverty line and the war on terror had further impoverished them, mainly because of the federal government’s wrong policies. He wondered how the provincial government would set up more girls schools when it had failed to run the existing ones efficiently.

Terming the MMA Musharraf government’s ‘B-team’, he said the alliance had failed to obtain the net hydel profits from the central government.

He said that MMA’s support to the 17th constitutional amendment and its failure to adopt a strong stand on the royalty of gas and electricity and tax on tobacco had exposed the alliance’s real face.

The people, he said, had realised this and they were preparing to inflict a crushing defeat on the MMA in the general elections.