DEPRIVED parts of Wales remain as poor as Slovenia despite an injection of millions of pounds in European aid, Plaid Cymru claimed yesterday.
Latest official comparisons of wealth from Eurocrats will rank two thirds of Wales with Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, the party said.
But opposition demands for a special committee of inquiry into the amount of Assembly govern-ment match-funding for the £1.2bn Objective 1 aid programme were firmly rejected by the Assembly government yesterday.
During a heated debate, Economic Minister Andrew Davies accused Plaid of wanting to create "an unjustified sense of crisis".
"This committee will not add one jot in delivering Objective 1, he said.
Labour issued figures from regeneration partnerships yesterday showing more than 7,000 jobs had been created under the programme in North Wales, and 11,327 jobs had been safeguarded.
But Ceredigion AM Elin Jones claimed there were unanswered questions over where the Assembly government would find the £800m required for the remainder of the five-year programme.
There were shortfalls of £30m in the Local Regeneration Fund for councils, and £100m was due to Wales from the revaluation of the euro against the pound.
The gross domestic product in Wales still lagged behind that of other UK Objective 1 areas, South Yorkshire, Merseyside and the Scottish Isles, she said.
"Poverty in west Wales and the Valleys is on the same level as Slovenia," she told AMs.
