ADB to give $150m as budgetary support credit

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FE Report
Bangladesh will receive US$150 million budgetary support credit from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under an agreement signed in Dhaka Thursday.
The fund will be utilised to ensure good governance in administration and judiciary.
Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary, M Aminul Islam Bhuiyan and Country Director of the Manila-based donor, Hua Du, signed the agreement on behalf of the government and the ADB respectively at ERD conference room in the city.
ERD sources said the money would be used for speeding up the ongoing anti-corruption reforms, facilitating judicial reforms with a focus on improvement in performance, transparency and accountability, strengthening the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and ensuring good governance and accountability in different government ministries and agencies.
The Supreme Court and the Cabined Division will implement the programmes.
According to the ERD, the government will require a total of $170 million worth of fund to implement the "Good Governance Programme". Out of the fund, the ADB is providing $150 million and the rest $20 million will be mobilised from other donors, the sources added.
One senior ERD official told the FE that the ongoing reform works in the government system had influenced the Manila-based lending agency to finance reforms in public and judicial systems.
He said: "The ADB early this year promised the budgetary support credit following initiatives taken by the present government on reforms in the Election Commission (EC) and the ACC, recast of Public Service Commission and separation of judiciary from the administration."
The official, however, said that earlier the ADB intended to provide only $40 million worth of progarmme loan for ensuring good governance in the public administration. But it raised the amount of credit seeing the government's initiatives on streamlining the public system, he added.