No government has ever been able to implement the Annual Development Programme (ADP) optimally during the last one decade although allocations in the national budget for development works have augmented gradually, analysts said.
Many measures, taken to enhance ADP implementation capacity of the government agencies concerned, have yielded little to improve the situation.
The governments have failed to spend even 90 per cent of the original ADP outlay and 100 per cent of the revised allocations, they pointed out.
The ADP outlay has been increased to 33 per cent of the proposed Tk 2.95 trillion national budget for the next fiscal year (FY), 2015-16, from 29 per cent of the total Tk 1.32 trillion budget in FY 2010-11.
This outlay is also 21 per cent higher than the current fiscal's original ADP worth Tk 803.15 billion, and 29 per cent up from the revised Tk 750 billion outlay in the previous FY.
Development analysts on Wednesday said the bloated allocation for the development budget created room for incorporating non-priority and politically-motivated projects as well as mismanaging the public fund.
It also affects the quality of implementation of the development projects under ADP, they opined.
Poor project execution under ADP forces the government to cut the outlay every year. It usually trims down ADP in the third quarter of every financial year.
In the previous FY, 2013-14, the government could spend 95 per cent of Tk 600 billion revised ADP (RADP), while 86 per cent of the Tk 658.72 billion original ADP.
In FY 2013, the ministries and agencies concerned spent 93 per cent of the revised ADP of Tk 523.66 billion, while Tk 484.56 billion or 88 per cent of the Tk 550 billion original outlay.
In FY 2012, they spent 93 per cent of the Tk 410.80 billion revised outlay, and Tk 380.20 billion or 82 per cent of the original Tk 460 billion ADP.
In FY 2011, the government performed poorly in spending an 'overestimated' ADP allocation. It spent 92 per cent of the Tk 358.80 billion RADP, while 85 per cent of the Tk 385 billion original outlay.
The spending from the development budget has also shown a sluggish trend in the current FY despite the government's several measures to accelerate ADP implementation pace.
In the current FY, the government has implemented 51 per cent of the Tk 803.15 billion original ADP until July-April period, while 55 per cent of the Tk 750 billion reappraised allocation.
According to the government statistics, the ministries and agencies concerned appeared tight-fisted in spending from the rather ambitiously-set development recipes in the previous fiscals.
Former caretaker government adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam said the government mainly prepares 'overestimated' ADP to show big national budget and allows some politically-motivated projects.
"The bloated ADP outlay encourages the ministries and agencies to incorporate non-priority and politically-motivated projects. At the end of the year the government fails to allocate adequate money against the projects in the ADP, which in turn delays their execution."
If project implementation is delayed, its cost is overrun and quality of work is affected, he told the FE.
The Institute of Governance Studies of BRAC University in a study report said ADP in Bangladesh has a general trend to be overestimated, for which its achievement is far behind the target.
"This reveals the fact that there were flaws in preparation of ADP, which led to overestimation. As a result, RADP size needed to be reduced every year with a few exceptions. Even this RADP could not be implemented fully. Implementation of the aided projects also suffered," the report added.
Professor Shamsul Alam, Member of General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission, said had the government framed a realistic ADP with high oversights on the project-implementing agencies, eliminating the culture of revision at the end of the day, there would have been better results.
The government invests fund, mainly through ADP, to develop the country's infrastructure and eradicate poverty, whereas the non-development budget is mainly utilized to pay salary of public servants.
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