PESHAWAR, May 24: NWFP's Senior Minister Sirajul Haq has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf to sanction a special package for the smaller provinces because the federal government was opposed to allocating 50 per cent of the divisible pool in the National Finance Commission Award.

Briefing newsmen on the provincial MMA government's efforts in Islamabad to get a fair share out of the NFC award for the provinces, Mr Haq said all the provinces had agreed not to sign the accord till their demand for a 50 per cent share was accepted.

"We will not sign the award. Our people are living in abject poverty. We have asked Islamabad to take poverty as one of the factors determining allocations," he said.

The MMA government, he said, wanted to bring the backward areas at par with the developed ones for which it needed a development package from the president. At present, he said, more than 45 per cent of the NWFP population was living below the poverty line, a situation equally embarrassing for the federal government.

He said the MMA government had been in touch with the political leadership of the province over the net hydel profit issue and the NFC award for the last six months.

"We had proposed to the centre to re-fix the NFC allocations between the centre and provinces at 40:60 per cent. But the other three provinces proposed it at 50:50 and we have accepted it," he added.

He said the NWFP Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution on fresh allocations out of the NFC award, but the centre had not considered it. He demanded that Islamabad pay up Rs345 billion to the NWFP under net hydel profit outstanding against it.

Mr Haq said the federal finance minister had come up with a newformula, which allocated 94 per cent on population basis, 2 per cent for backwardness, 2 per cent area-wise and 2 per cent on the basis of revenue collection.

He said: "It will give 54.10 per cent of the NFC allocations to Punjab, 25.96 per cent to Sindh, 13.22 per cent to the NWFP and 6.72 per cent to Balochistan. This is unacceptable to the NWFP and Balochistan."

The president had doled out millions of rupees for Karachi and Gwadar, but had not sanctioned a single penny to the NWFP, he said. "Pervez Musharraf is also our president and he should give equal treatment to the provinces. We are advocate of a strong centre, but not at the cost of our own province," he added.

He claimed that the austerity measures taken by the provincial government would bring revolutionary changes in the social sector in the next few years. He said that the MMA government had made education, health and poverty alleviation its priority to bring drastic changes in the social sector.

Mr Haq also asked Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali to grant them (the NWFP) Rs10 billion out of the net hydel profit's outstanding amount, in the next annual budget and this amount should be adjusted against the provincial dues. He asked the prime minister to increase, as per the AGN Kazi formula, the current fixed amount of net hydro-profit (Rs6 billion) to Rs8 billion annually.