Abu Sazzad :
The remaining 44 per cent of fund amounting to Taka 32,000 crore of Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the current fiscal 2014-15, would be misused as the government wants to go for quick implementation, say economists.
“As the government is set to implement the rest 44 per cent ADP funds within two months (May to June), it would not be able to ensure quality work. The money sanction for the projects will be misused,” former Bangladesh Bank governor Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed told The New Nation on Monday. He added it is not possible for the government to ensure of implementing the quality project due to hurriedness.
Government has failed to implement 44 per cent of ADP for the current fiscal 2014-15 due to political unrest, according to Planning Ministry sources.
As a result, a good portion of ADP fund alocated for many projects has remained unutilized till date, a high up of the Planning Ministry said, adding the government may face challenges for implementing the ADP for the upcoming fiscal.
The Planning Ministry is planning to approve more projects for allocating about Tk 32,000 crore within the two months to fulfil their yearly target.
Talking to The New Nation Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Executive Director Mustafizur Rahman said on Monday said If the government fails to implement the rest project within two months, it would back the rest of the amount of the ADP fund to the national exchequer.
“Planning Ministry can approve some new projects to finish the ADP fund promptly to meet their annual target. But some questions will be raised about the transparency and accountability and the quality of the work for quick implementation of various projects. To approve quickly, the IMED can approve low categories project to fulfil their yearly target”, said the CPD executive. At the beginning of the year, the work of the Annual Development Projects were run very slowly due to political unrest during the couple of months. As a result, the government failed to approve so many projects at that time, opined the CPD executive.
As a result, at the last time, the implementer department of Planning Ministry IMED is moving speedy to approve new projects for fulfilling the set target of ADP of 2014-15, he observed.
Actually, in the last couple of years, the size of the ADP has increased but the standard of the projects did not increase, claimed the CPD executive.
He underscored the need for improving the skill of Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of Ministry of Planning to proper implementation of the government projects.
Lack of proper monitoring and effectiveness of IMED, the government annual development projects failed to provide the expected level of service to the people, he also said.
The government has set the ADP fund of Tk 75,000 crore for the fiscal to undertake various projects for boosting economy.
According to the latest data of IMED, so far Tk 43,333 crore or 56 per cent has been allocated from ADB fund during the first ten months (July to April).
IMED source said the reporter on the condition of anonymity that a total of 55 Ministries failed to implement their two-third development projects in the current year. Along side, 37 Ministries failed to spend less than 50 per cent of their development fund.
