PESHAWAR, Jan 15: President Gen Pervez Musharraf will soon convene a meeting to resolve the issue of non-payment of hydel profit dues by Wapda, according to NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani.

"The president will hold a meeting very soon to resolve the issue," the chief minister said, adding that the president had taken serious notice of the non-implementation of the arbitration commission’s decision about net hydel profit.

The chief minister was talking to journalists on the occasion of the launching of MRI services at the Khyber Teaching Hospital on Monday.

He said that the MMA-led government in the province had refused loans offered by multinational organisations, but after Wapda’s refusal to pay the dues, the province would be left with no option but to borrow Rs4 billion from the Asian Development Bank.

The loan, he said, would be obtained to finish the Malakand Rural Development Project and schemes currently under way in the province.

He said that the province would not have needed to borrow if Wapda had paid the hydel profit dues in fulfilment of arbitration commission’s decision.

Mr Durrani praised all political parties for their ‘unflinching support to the provincial government’ to get its due share in the hydel profits but he criticised federal ministers Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao and Amir Muqam for their silence over the issue but said: “Both of them had their own compulsions because of which they are silent”.

He said that he would participate in the upcoming meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) and would take up the issue of problems faced by the Pakistani pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.