Calgary (Mar 10/03) - A Mackenzie Valley pipeline could be held up if the Northwest Territories government doesn't get an agreement to keep some of the cash from its diamonds, oil and gas.

"We need devolution, we need resource revenue sharing," said NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi last week, describing the federal government as a sleeping elephant.

He described his job as trying to keep the elephant awake. The pipeline could be just the leverage needed. "I am concerned that support for resource development amongst people of the NWT will decline."

Kakfwi said the NWT is going broke trying to support an influx of workers and development. The territory could hold a proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline for ransom if it can't access benefits from it.

Right now, the federal government keeps all the royalties coming from the NWT's resources -- the territorial government doesn't keep any of the cash.

Negotiations started last year in an effort to change that -- a process called devolution.

The NWT has one of the hottest economies in the country with the highest employment, disposable income and retail sales rates.

"But in the next fiscal year the Northwest Territories government is projecting a more than $100 million deficit. There's something wrong with this picture," said Kakfwi during a Canadian Institute Arctic gas symposium in Calgary.

The key topic at the symposium was the $4-billion Mackenzie Valley pipeline championed by a consortium of energy companies along with the Aboriginal Pipeline Group (APG).

Fred Carmichael, leader of the APG as well as the Gwich'in Tribal Council said financing for the APG's one-third portion of the pipe could be announced within the next two weeks if not days.