The Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation Division of the Planning Commission has suggested that the government should accelerate implementation of the foreign-assisted projects and ensure transparency in the projects to boost assistance from the development partners in future.
‘The future inflow of foreign assistance may face difficulties if the government do not take proper action to boost the foreign-assisted projects by ensuring transparency in the development works,’ said the IMED in a new study on foreign-assisted programmes.
The report was submitted to the Planning Commission on Thursday.
The IMED report said the works of 18 foreign-funded development projects, mainly in the power and transportation sector, had fallen into uncertainty due to corruption, lack of transparency and delay in implementation process as the concerned development partners including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and various bilateral partners cancelled or stopped financing to the projects.
‘Therefore, the implementation progress of the eighteen projects is very much negligible due to lower disbursement of money from the development partners to the projects,’ the IMED report said.
The report said along with the 18 projects, the railway department had floated a tender for a Tk 1,150-crore project to develop the Dhaka-Chittagong Railways in 2011. But the development partners have stopped funding the project, raising questions about transparency in its tendering process.
So, the development partners stopped financing the project from last year until the government calls retender for the same project.
So, the development work of the project was in limbo.
The development partners have either stopped or delayed disbursement of money due to lack of transparency in tendering process, recruiting foreign consultant or upward revision of the cost of the projects, the report said.
Of the 18 projects, major projects are 150 -megawatt peaking power plant in Khulna involving cost of Tk 1,524 crore, 150-megawatt gas turbine power plant in Shirajgong involving cost of Tk 962 crore, Secondary Town Integrity Flood Protection project involving Tk 985 crore, electrifications in 10 district towns involving Tk 600 crore and three projects involving Tk 445 crore under the environment and forestry department are facing difficulties in implementation due to inadequate disbursement of funds from the development partners.
Abul Kalam Azad, director of the IMED told New Age on Friday, ‘Foreign assistance is very important for development in Bangladesh. So, always we need to ensure the proper use of foreign funds.’
‘However, we have recommended that the government should accelerate the foreign-assisted programmes for the sake of inflow of foreign assistance in the country,’ he said.
‘For the sake of future inflow of foreign assistance, the government needs to focus on many areas including problem in land acquisition, changing the project director, tendering and public procurement process, more transparency and accountability in the development works,’ Azad said.
-With New Age input
