Niger President, Mamadou Tandja, has dismissed reports that his country is experiencing a famine. "The people of Niger look well-fed as you can see," he told the BBC.

He accepted there were food shortages in some areas after poor rains and locust invasions but said this was not unusual for his country.

Mr. Tandja said the idea of a famine was being exploited for political and economic gains by opposition parties and United Nations aid agencies.

The World Food Programme denied that the scale of the problem had been exaggerated.

"We have not spoken about famine but about pockets of severe malnutrition," WFP spokesman, Greg Barrow, told the BBC.

Mr. Tandja said if the problems were serious, shanty towns would form around the big towns, people would flee to neighbouring countries and street beggars would become more prevalent. Mr. Tandja said this has not happened.

"We are experiencing like all the countries in the Sahel, a food crisis due to the poor harvest and the locust attacks of 2004," Mr. Tandja explained.

But he said the reports of famine were "false propaganda" being circulated by opposition politicians and UN agencies for their own interests.

"It is only by deception that such agencies receive funding," he said.

He questioned why out of the $45m (£25m) promised to Niger to help it deal with the food crisis, only $2.5m has been received by his government.

Mr. Barrow said that the WFP was accountable for all its funds to donor governments but pointed out that not all aid money is channelled through the governments of recipient countries.

He agreed that Niger often faced hunger but said last year's harvests were "particularly bad".