Govt ADP execution capacity stagnates

Government agencies spent 27 per cent of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) outlay during the first half of this fiscal, almost same as last year's corresponding period.

Analysts view that the government failed to improve upon its project-execution capacity compared to that of the same period (July-December) of last financial year (FY), 2016-17.

According to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), the government ministries and agencies spent Tk 443.31 billion, or 27.02 per cent of the total development budget of Tk 1.64 trillion for the FY 2017-18, during the six months.

The implementation rate during the first half (H1) of the last fiscal was 27.20 per cent with an expenditure of Tk 335.54 billion.

The government has undertaken a Tk 1.64-trillion ADP for the current financial year to implement more than 1300 development projects.

Emerging from Tuesday's meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told reporters that they were hopeful about improving the project-execution status in the last half of the current FY2018.

He refused to disclose details about the execution of the ADP in the current FY2018.

An IMED official said, "The government agencies prefer to spend funds from the allocated internal resources instead of the money from the external resources, resulting in lower implementation rate."

The government has allocated Tk 955.15 billion from its internal resources, Tk 604.16 billion from external resources and the rest Tk 81.54 billion from the project- implementing agencies' own funds to bankroll the country's development recipe.

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