Special Correspondent :
The pace of spending on nine fast track mega development projects remained as slow as usual during the first four months of the current fiscal year thanks to inefficiency of the government agencies.
This has led to their delayed execution and thus hurts the national economy, officials said on Sunday.
Earlier, the government has allocated large funds under the current fiscal’s Annual Development Programme (ADP) to speed up the implementation of the projects.
During July-October period of the fiscal year 2019-20, the government agencies could have been spent only 17 per cent or Tk 5,515 crore out of total Tk 30,449 crore earmarked for the nine mega projects, according to the Planning Ministry.
These projects are: Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, Dhaka Metro Rail, Karnaphuli Tunnel, Dohazari-Ghumdum Rail Line, Matarbari Power Plant, Padma Bridge, Padma Rail Link, Dhaka-Ashulia Elevated Expressway and Pyra Deep Sea Port.
The government is implementing the projects at an estimated cost of Tk 2,43,436 crore. Of the amount, about Tk 1,87, 000 crore or 76 per cent would be borrowed from external sources as hard term loan.
When contacted, a senior Planning Commission official told The New Nation yesterday that poor fund utilization capacity by public agencies has become a disease for the economy. “But it did not appear all of a sudden…. It is an inherent problem.”
He, however, said that the government is relentlessly working to enhance the capacity of its agencies for speeding up execution of mega development projects.
“It is quite painful to observe that mega projects have been running in rough weathers in respect of two cardinal aspects, namely cost escalation and time overrun,” Economist Dr Ahsan H Mansur said
He mentioned that slow pace of spending by government agencies has caused a significant delay in their implementation and thus would undermine their expected benefit on the economy.
“Public agencies cannot utilize funds allocated for development projects due to lack of their capacity and competence,” he noted.
When asked, Dr. Ahsan H. Mansur said,” Bangladesh will have to start repayment of loans against the mega development projects from 2025. If these projects are not commissioned by this time, the economy will bear the burden of it.”
“Mega projects have caught up in the bad patch of time and cost overrun due to inefficiency of the implementing agencies
Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economist of the World Bank’s Dhaka office, said the fast-track mega projects were delayed for various reasons, including poor initial designs, uncertainty over funding, complexity over land acquisition and fund release and ineffective supervision and inadequate capacity of public agencies.
He said an efficient handling of big projects and their timely implementation can reduce their whole cost significantly. People and economy can also get immense benefit in such way.
Various studies show that the country’s GDP will increase by 3 to 4 per cent after the completion of the fast track mega projects.
Both the economists have urged the government to take immediate remedial measures so that implementation of mega projects may not face further delay.
