PESHAWAR, March 3: Rejecting the government's claim of achieving economic growth, National Awami Party Pakistan President Arbab Mohammad Ayub Jan said on Thursday that price-hike and unemployment in the country had multiplied the misery of common people.

The government's claims were restricted only to papers while the actual situation was totally different, Ayub Jan told reporters at his residence at Taroo Jabba, near here. He was accompanied by Abdul Latif Afridi, General Secretary, and Shahabuddin, provincial President of the NAPP.

Foreign reserves might well have reached $14 billion mark but the common people had not benefited from it as they were continuing to be crushed by the twin menace of price-hike and joblessness, he said.

Prices of petroleum products, he said, had increased by Rs10 per litre as compared to previous fiscal due to wrong policies of the federal government. The NWFP, he said, was the most affected province due to wars, either in Afghanistan or the tribal areas.

He claimed that there was 90 per cent unemployment in the NWFP and the infrastructure had totally collapsed due to the influx of millions of Afghan refugees. He suggested that both the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the NWFP needed rehabilitation of people from the funds extended to Pakistan by the world community for the war against terrorism.

"We don't need F-16s but require investment in the NWFP so that employment opportunities could be created," he remarked. The former provincial minister said that the announcement of President Gen Pervez Musharraf regarding provision of 50 per cent share to provinces in the National Finance Commission award was a good development but remarked that it should be implement practically. The NAPP, he pointed out, had demanded 55 per cent share.

Criticizing the ongoing military operation in the tribal areas, he said that traditionally the people there resolved all their problems through jirga system. The government, he stressed, should solve the issues through their local customs and traditions.

A grand jirga from all agencies should be set up and issues resolved through concrete dialogues, he said. About the construction of Kalabagh dam, he said the NAPP supported its construction if two canals from River Kabul were extended so that uncultivated lands of the province were brought under cultivation.