The government implemented 95 per cent of the Tk 600 billion Annual Development Programme (ADP) in the just-concluded fiscal year (FY) 2013-14 with poor execution of donor-funded projects, officials said Tuesday.
A top Planning Commission official said the government ministries and divisions preferred spending more money from the government's own exchequer than from the donor-funded project aid in the last fiscal.
The government ministries and divisions spent Tk 380 billion or 98 per cent of their Tk 388 billion allocation from the government's own exchequer in the ADP, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) Secretary Suraiya Begum told the FE.
The government agencies, however, spent Tk 186.5 billion or 88 per cent of their Tk 212 billion allocations from the external resources (project aid) in the fiscal.
According to the IMED, the overall ADP implementation rate was down by one percentage point from that of the previous financial year (FY) 2012-13 and three percentage points higher than that of the FY2011-12.
The government ministries and divisions spent Tk 567.93 billion from the ADP of the last fiscal, which concluded in June last, IMED data showed.
In the previous FY2012-13, they spent 96 per cent of the Tk 523.66 billion ADP outlay.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said: "The 95 per cent ADP implementation rate is satisfactory even after massive political violence in the first half of the last fiscal."
He said although spending from the project aid in the ADP was poor, that from the internal resources was laudable.
The implementation rate could be much higher, had ministries and divisions implemented more donor-funded projects under the development budget, Mr Kamal told journalists after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council Tuesday.
A senior Planning Commission official said the government agencies spent more money from the Tk 388 billion outlay from the internal resources due to less monitoring and supervision from the government side.
They, however, avoided spending adequate funds from the donor-funded projects in the ADP due to strict monitoring and supervision by the development partners, he told the FE requesting anonymity.
According to the IMED data, seven ministries and divisions including Power Division, Rural Development and Co-operative Division, Disaster Management and Relief Affairs Ministry, and Housing and Public Works Ministry, spent cent per cent of their allocations during the period from July 2013 to June 2014.
Eleven ministries and divisions including Roads Division, Agriculture Ministry, Primary and Mass Education, Information Ministry, and Fisheries and Livestock Ministry spent 99 per cent of their funds.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the ECNEC meeting Tuesday expressed her satisfaction over the 95 per cent ADP implementation rate in the last FY 2014, a participant of the ECNEC meeting told the FE.
He said the Prime Minister had advised the Planning Commission and all the ministries to work together during project preparation to avoid start-up delays in implementing development projects.