Japan has expressed its concern over poor implementation rate of projects it has funded under official development assistance (ODA) scheme in Bangladesh, officials said.
In nine months (April-December 2014) of Japanese fiscal year (JFY), some 25 billion Japanese yen were disbursed against the annual target of disbursing 49 billion yen.
Some 26 billion yen was disbursed during the same period of JFY 2013.
 "Some ongoing projects are not operating well and some were not implemented within the loan disbursement periods. As a result, the government of Japan has expressed its concerns about the implementation delays and sought strong initiatives of the implementing agencies," Senior Secretary to the Economic Relations Divisions (ERD)
Mohammad Mejbahuddin said at a recent meeting.
At a portfolio review meeting on Japanese ODA loan projects, he also said slow execution of the projects has left a negative impact on the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
Mr Mejbahuddin warned that in case of long failures to upscale project execution, disbursed money will be relocated to other projects capable of absorbing additional resources.
He emphasised the need for speedy and proper implementation of projects for utilisation of overseas loans.
According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) estimation, the ratio of Japanese loan disbursement in Bangladesh in 2014 was 12.87 per cent which is below the JICA's global average of 14.34 per cent.
JICA chief representative in Bangladesh Mikio Hataeda in the review meeting said Japanese loan commitment to Bangladesh increased to 120.986 billion yen in 2013 from 38.792 billion yen in 2009.
In terms of committed amount and the pipeline amount, Bangladesh stands at third and fourth largest respectively among India, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Iraq, and Sri Lanka, he added.
According to JICA officials, problems like slow start-up, slow or low quality procurement, and coordination gap delay project implementation and poor loan disbursement.
They said at least 21 billion yen more need to be disbursed during January-March period of 2015 to achieve 93 per cent of annual target which will be considered as satisfactory.
Earlier, the JICA identified various loopholes that hinder implementation of projects under its ODA loans.
It found that difference in project cost between appraisal and approved development project proposal (DPP), few staff assigned for project preparation, delay in DPP preparation and approval, inconsistency between the Annual Development Programme and the JICA's long-term project disbursement projection are some problems behind delays in execution.
When contacted, Mr Mejbahuddin told the FE that various reasons are there behind the slow-down of implementation of the projects.
 "We asked the execution agencies to speed up implementation of foreign-funded projects removing the obstacles," he said.
syful-islam@outlook.com
Japan-funded projects see poor progress
Syful Islam | Published: January 11, 2015 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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