Donors press for third party audit of all projects

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Munima Sultana
Development partners have been giving more and more importance to third party audit of all government-funded and aided projects in transportation and communications sectors amid rising graft-related incidents in the sectors.
Officials said, the donors raised the demand for external audit in road bridge construction and maintenance projects during the working group meeting of Local Consultative Group (LCG) held recently. Its reflection has been found in some new development project proposals (DPP), they said.
The Japanese lending agency has already included this kind of audit as one of the major conditions in billion dollar projects where it assured funding. These projects include US $ 2.97 billion metro rail project and construction project of 2nd Meghna, Meghna-Gumti and Kanchpur bridges, they added.
Transport analysts said this demand of the development partners has become obvious as most infrastructure-related projects in different ministries including the communications, shipping and local government have been facing various allegations of corruption, mismanagement, irregularities etc., at different stages of implementation.
They claim that the latest graft issue in the much-talked about Padma bridge project has made the development partners (DPs) more concerned in this connection.
"The DPs wanted to introduce third party audit in addition to the government-sponsored audit and we have agreed on it without any objection," said a communications ministry official.
As he is not authorised to talk to media, the official on condition of anonymity told the FE that the development partners also now want to be assured of the steps taken for operation and maintenance of built-up roads and bridges to ensure transparency in their activities.
Sources said, during the working group meeting of LCG, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) expressed concern about road construction and maintenance issues and asked Roads and Highways Department (RHD) to take steps to ensure monitoring and accountability.
The communications ministry and RHD officials, however, said they welcomed the demand of conducting third party audit and said it would make people understand many cross-cutting issues of delay in implementation of various projects.
"We welcome the development partners' demand and sought their cooperation with regard to audit," said an official with confidence that it would bring into focus many realities about delay in roads and bridges' construction and implementation in front of the people. He said this kind of audit in RHD was conducted in the past.
Another RHD official said, in a DFID-funded periodical maintenance project which was implemented during 2006-2007, an Indian firm conducted the audit.
The working group meeting of LCG was held on September 26, three months after the plenary meeting of LCG. The working groups were formed in different sectors including agriculture, food security, energy and environment and climate change and gender to assist the government in implementing various projects.
The mission of the working group in transport and communication sectors was to assist the government in preparing and implementing a coordinated transport policy. It is also to facilitate and coordinate the overall development of the sector through effective policy formulation. The group, formed with both DPs and the government, is also to facilitate inter-ministerial decision making to integrate key cross cutting issues during implementation of projects.
Roads Secretary MAN Siddique and senior representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Kei Toyama co-chaired the first meeting where representatives from road, bridge divisions of the communications ministry, local government division, shipping ministry, RHD, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority were present.
Apart from JICA, ADB and Korea International Cooperation Agency attended the meeting. Though Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and others partners are involved in various transport and communication sectors' projects, no representative from these financiers were there.
It is learnt that the working group also brought issues like taking counter measures to eliminate backlog in the maintenance of roads and bridge construction and emphasised on ensuring improved monitoring and accountability of ongoing and future programmes being implemented in different ministries and agencies.
Though it was decided to hold the working group meeting every month to strengthen monitoring and accountability, it is yet to be held. But it is learnt that the group's next meeting will give focus more implementation procedure of projects including procurement, disbursement and approval of procurement.
Meanwhile, presence of both JICA and ADB in the technical evaluation committee of costly projects including mass rapid transit, bus rapid transit projects and the second Meghna, Meghna-Gumti and Kanchpur construction projects were recommended to ensuring transparency in procure-related activities according to DPPs of these projects.