28 pc ADP fund spent in first half of current fiscal

The government's development project execution is still crossing a bumpy road as the ministries could spend only 28 per cent of the development budget outlay in the first half (H1) of the current fiscal, officials said Thursday.
The use of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) funds in the H1 of the current financial year (FY) 2014-15 was 1.0 percentage point higher than that of the same period in last FY2014 and 2.0 percentage points lower than that of the corresponding period of FY2013.
The ministries and agencies spent Tk 224.43 billion, about 28 per cent of total Tk 803.15 billion outlay in July-December period of the current FY2015, said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal while unveiling the implementation progress of the current ADP in the Planning Commission Thursday.
According to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) data, the ministries and government agencies spent higher funds from the project aid while lower funds from the government's own exchequer.
During July-December this fiscal, they spent Tk 148.84 billion or 28 per cent of the Tk 526.15 billion outlay from the government internal resources, while Tk 75.59 billion or 27 per cent of Tk 277 billion outlay from external resources (project aid).
When asked, the Planning Minister, however, failed to give statistics on physical progress of the development projects under the current Tk 803.15 billion ADP.
He, however, claimed that the physical progress of the ADP is much higher than the financial progress.
"Since the executing agencies usually pay the bill to the contractors for development works in the last quarter of a financial year, the financial progress in the first half in the current fiscal is showing lower," he said.
The minister also failed to give any progress report on individual ministries.
Meanwhile, development analysts have criticised the weak performance of the ministries and executing agencies in implementing the projects at a satisfactory rate in the H1 of FY2015 saying the Planning Commission's effort to expedite the project execution has virtually failed to bring any result.
Mr Mustafa Kamal was, however, hopeful of spending 100 per cent of the ADP allocation in this fiscal year.
Sketching a better picture of Bangladesh's economy, the minister has said not only the ADP would be executed to the extent of 100 per cent, the government would also prove that economic growth rate will cross the 6.0 per cent trajectory, recorded over the last few years, to reach 7.0 per cent in the current fiscal.
Criticising the Bangladesh Bank's recent projection of nearly 6.5 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth, he said: "The BB projection is not correct. The central bank has not all the macro-economic data. So, its projection is not reliable. I can assure you that Bangladesh's economy must grow at 7 per cent rate this fiscal."
Mr Kamal said the progress of in execution of the government-selected six first-track large projects is satisfactory. This will help boost the economy.
He said the Planning Commission would extend its all-out effort to streamline the project implementation.
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