Finance adviser, stakeholders meet to evaluate project implementation soon

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FHM Humayan Kabir
The finance adviser will sit with all stakeholders shortly to identify and resolve the hurdles impeding the implementation of foreign-funded projects under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).
The adviser might sit separately with different ministries to review the progress of foreign-funded projects under the ADP from this week, Economic Relations Division (ERD) Secretary M Aminul Islam Bhuiyan told the FE Saturday.
Official sources said the Chief Adviser directed the finance and planning adviser to review the status of various ADP projects and explore ways to remove the obstacles hindering the execution.
The slow pace of implementation has resulted in far less foreign aid disbursement during the first quarter of the current fiscal, sources said.
In a preliminary project review meeting, the ERD found that only 5.8 per cent of the works was implemented during the first four months (July-October) of FY08 of the selected 36 big foreign-funded projects under different ministries.
Besides, the government has received only US$274.26 million as foreign aid during July-September period against different projects due to slow pace of project implementation.
"I think the adviser will discuss with the project implementing ministries and agencies from the end of this week," the ERD secretary hoped.
Bhuiyan said: "I have asked the concerned desk of the ERD to simulate the foreign-funded projects under the current ADP which have at least US$15 million as project aid component. Then we will sit with the executing agencies of those selected projects to explore ways for overcoming the obstacles to ensure their
timely implementation."
The secretary added the ERD had also collected comments of some development partners on the reasons behind the slow pace of project implementation.
Meanwhile, a senior ERD official said: "We have already collected comments on the reasons behind slow pace of project implementation from both the concerned donors and government's project executing agencies."
Another official said that they had already selected 55 foreign funded-projects each with allocations of $40 million and above as project aid component to place before the upcoming review meetings.