Govt at risk of losing big chunk of WB reimbursement facility

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Shakhawat Hossain
The government might fail to avail itself a large part of the reimbursement facility offered by the World Bank (WB) against the 'golden handshake' (voluntary retirement scheme) programme now being implemented in some state-owned enterprises (SoEs).
The slow progresses in VRS implementation in some of the targeted SoEs is likely to force the government let go about a half of the WB facility unutilised.
A recent meeting of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) expressed such concern while reviewing the progress in the implementation of the VRS for the officials and employees of the SoEs under the Enterprise Growth and Bank Modernisation (EGBM) project.
Presided by an additional secretary of the MoF, the meeting was told that the government had only five-week time as per Development Credit Agreement (DCA) with the WB to complete the procedure and claim reimbursement against VRS.
So far, only Tk 5.31 billion, nearly 25 per cent, of the total amount of the total Tk 21.57 billion worth of WB fund has been reimbursed against the VRS programme for the Rupali Bank officials and employees.
The reimbursement claim of about Tk 4.0 billion on the VRS programme for officials and employees of the Bangladesh Biman (BB) and the Bangladesh Jute Mills Corporation (BJMC) is now under process.
But the MoF is encountering various difficulties due to slow progress in the preparation of the statements of expenditure by the line ministries.
The government has to complete the ongoing procedure by December 21 next to establish the reimbursement claim against VRS in BJMC and Biman, the meeting was told.
Even if the government is successful in getting WB fund against VRS in BJMC and Biman, more than 50 per cent of the credit would go unutilised.
The meeting instructed the line ministries to prepare their respective statements on VRS expenses in time so that the MoF could claim money before the deadline. The WB had earlier made its position clear that no fund would be reimbursed after December 31 deadline.
The country entered into an agreement with the WB for receiving US$ 250 million in 2004 for implementing the VRS in public sector enterprises.
The WB provided fund to promote the urgently needed reforms in the state owned enterprises (SOEs) and the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs).
The VRS is one of the six components of the project.
Other components include enterprise growth of the small enterprise development, refurbishment of assets of loss-making SOE's, institutional strengthening of different investment promotional bodies and monitoring and evaluation and tracking.