IMED detects major lapses in LGD project

The government's project evaluation body IMED has detected irregularities and shoddy work in a Tk 3.16 billion sanitation and water supply project of the Local Government Division (LGD), officials said Saturday.
The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) under the Planning Commission conducted a post-project evaluation study on the execution of the 'Hygienic, Sanitation and Water Supply' (HYSAWA) project recently where it detected the irregularities.
The Tk 3.16 billion project was launched by the LGD in January 2006 and it ended in December 2010. Danish donor DANIDA provided Tk 1.88 billion fund for implementing it while the remaining money was provided by the government from its own exchequer.
Under the project, the LGD has installed tube-wells, water supply pipeline, rain water preservation system, sanitation facilities, ponds and filters in coastal areas and north-western districts of the country.
The IMED evaluation report said: "The project was implemented fully in terms of numbers, but not quite as per the rules and regulations of the project."
The evaluation report said: "Most of the water points have been selected without following the project criteria. In some areas, there is more than one tube-well installed in cluster without justifying the community demand."
It said the project implementing agencies had given tool-boxes to the beneficiaries for repairing the tube-wells at different places under the project. "But those tools are not fit for the tube-wells, which are installed. Those tool-boxes are useless now," said the report.
"Besides, the implementing agencies have taken 10-20 per cent money of the total installation cost of tube-well from the villagers. But they did it without following the HYSAWA project criteria properly. The WatSan committee in the union defines and collects the money according to their self-defined criteria. This is one of the main areas of flaws in the project which promoted some irregular practices as well," the report said.
The IMED report said since the team went for evaluating the project after its completion, there were no project officials and offices and it could not find out the loopholes in procurement properly.
The functional status of the project was mixed as some of these were fully functional, some partial and some none of the two, it said.
The IMED assigned the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) to evaluate the HYSAWA project.
Dr S M Zulfiqar Ali, senior research fellow of the BIDS, led the evaluation team and detected the irregularities and loopholes at one of the LGD's biggest sanitation and drinking water supply projects in rural Bangladesh.
Dr Ali told the FE that the project design was good but its implementation situation was shoddy. "If the project was implemented properly, the rural people could get real benefit from it."
The evaluation report found that the management and monitoring of the project was very weak.
Although the LGD appointed several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in rural areas, there was a lack of coordination among them, the study report said.
It said the project components were executed without following the rules properly and taking the needs of the community into consideration in many places.
In most of the cases, the Union Parishad (UP) WatSan Committee did not show active and functional interest to carry out project activities, Dr Zulfiqar Ali said.
He said if the public funds could properly be utilised, the project could have given immense benefits to many rural people.
Meanwhile, there was no relevant person in the LGD for comment despite repeated attempts by this reporter as the project was completed more than four years ago in 2010.
A senior IMED official said they had sent the HYSAWA project evaluation report to the LGD recommending proper action against the corrupt persons involved. "The LGD should take action against misappropriation of the public money."
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