The Asian Development Bank is unhappy with the progress four of its
funded development projects in Bangladesh have made.
The development partner also demanded its funded
projects be completed within time, official sources said.ADB officials expressed these opinions at a review meeting on the four projects at the National Economic Council in the city on Monday with Economic Relations Division secretary Md Abul Kalam Azad in the chair.
Abul Kalam Azad, director of implementation, monitoring and evaluation division, officials of ADB Dhaka office and other senior officials of ERD were present at the meeting.
One of the key projects among these four was designing a new expressway between Dhaka and Chittagong under the public-private partnership programme to boost trade and minimise traffic congestion on the highways.
‘As per the $10 million deal with the ADB, the project should have started in March 2013. But the government is yet to take any preparation to implement the project, which has irked the ADB,’ a senior official of the ERD told New Age.
Similarly, the development partner was worried about the progress of Skills Development Project that was supposed to be implemented between January 2008 and January 2013.
But the education ministry, executing agency of the project, could only finish 8.3 per cent of the job till date, the ERD official said.
As the education ministry has failed to implement the project, ADB is yet to disburse Tk 73.60 crore for its implementation.
The ERD has now proposed to the government to change the executing agency of this project as the education ministry had already been overloaded with other projects.
On the other hand, two other projects regarding institutional support for migrant workers and training for overseas workers have failed to make any progress.
‘Therefore, the ADB demanded such projects be implemented within shorter timeframe,’ said the official.
-with New Age input
