Disbursement of funds on Asian Development Bank (ADB)-financed projects until April this year has exceeded the annual target while contract awarding is found lagging behind, sources said.
Until April last, some US$ 627 million was disbursed against the executing agencies' (EA) annual target of $ 609 million. Another $ 69 million may be disbursed by June, raising the total amount to $ 696 million or 114 per cent against the target, they added.
The ADB and the Economic Relations Division (ERD) will sit in a portfolio review meeting today (Wednesday) where projects under implementation stage, common issues affecting portfolio performance, processing status and readiness of the projects scheduled for approval in the fiscal year 2016-17, and increase project readiness will be discussed.
"Close monitoring and good follow-up by high-ups have resulted in wonderful performance," ERD joint secretary Saifuddin Ahmed who will co-chair the review meeting told the FE.
He said usually performance in ADB-funded projects is quite well.
"We now give importance on project readiness before signing agreements with funding agencies. In the past, we saw delay in projects' readiness, a gap in implementation stage occurred resulting in bad performance," Mr Ahmed said replying to a query.
Some documents show that until April, contracts worth $ 508 million or 41 per cent of $ 1.231 billion annual target were awarded. A substantial amount of contract awards is expected in May and June particularly under transport, energy, and urban sectors.
Officials said since November last year, the portfolio review meeting has started to conduct readiness review of projects. The exercise includes stock taking key readiness which includes detailed design, recruitment of consultant, bidding process of civil works, and safeguard clearances including land acquisition and statutory environment clearance.
It helps plan early and take advance actions to achieve higher project readiness, they said.
The ADB said project readiness needs to be strengthened further to avoid start-up delay in implementation stage. In this regard, it plans to introduce 'readiness first' approach involving three years' rolling processing planning cycle interlinking processing and readiness milestones for each project.
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