The quality factor in ADP projects
Anwarul Iqbal | Wednesday, 23 July 2008
THE Annual Development Programme (ADP) is the main source of public sector investment in the country. But success in ADP implementation is not only about fulfilment of expenditure targets either. Success must not be measured primarily on the basis of only how quickly the money is spent. The emphasis should be on how quickly as well as how 'well' the money is spent on the ADP projects. There can be no reason for satisfaction if the expenditure targets are fulfilled, while expected physical output targets from the same record serious shortfalls.
Ensuring the 'quality' of the ADP projects calls for their sound conceiving in the first place. If this is not accomplished, then resources spent on them are to be considered as wasteful. Over the years, many ADP projects have tended to be symbolic of such waste. Thus, the Public Expenditure Review Commission (PERC) had earlier identified a saga of misuse of ADP resources during the last two decades. Thus, for instance, a proposed railway project that would have involved a development outlay worth over millions of takas to link Cox' Bazar with Chittagong was reportedly identified. A good road link was already existing between these two destinations. That should have made the proposed spending in the railway project irrelevant and superfluous. It would make far better sense if the resources that were earmarked for the proposed project could be used for projects in any sector where the benefits would be proportionately much bigger than the expected ones from what was conceived as the railway project.
The PERC in its examination also focused on a string of projects where routine substantial expenditures from the ADP are being made as preparatory to starting full-fledged work on them. In many cases, these projects and programmes are dependent on resources availability or commitment and actual disbursement of foreign funding for them which are uncertain. Year after year, a great deal of resources are getting consumed in maintaining project sites and paying salaries to staff there in anticipation that work on these projects and programmes could start. But these costs are proving to be very wasteful as there is no knowing when these ventures will take off or whether these will take off at all. Even common sense dictates that all ADP programmes need to be started and ended under a strictly defined time-frame after full availability of funding for them and taking of all preparations to complete them at one go.
Clearly, the first task in order of importance ought to be selection of projects and programmes after those have been put through cost benefit analysis and assessed for their rate of returns and found to be worthwhile. Only then, these should merit an inclusion in the ADP and that too after finances have been fully lined up to start work on them immediately and to complete the same within a stipulated period. These aspects are very important to avoid the escalating costs from delays in implementation and to get promptly the benefits from completed projects and programmes.
Ensuring the 'quality' of the ADP projects calls for their sound conceiving in the first place. If this is not accomplished, then resources spent on them are to be considered as wasteful. Over the years, many ADP projects have tended to be symbolic of such waste. Thus, the Public Expenditure Review Commission (PERC) had earlier identified a saga of misuse of ADP resources during the last two decades. Thus, for instance, a proposed railway project that would have involved a development outlay worth over millions of takas to link Cox' Bazar with Chittagong was reportedly identified. A good road link was already existing between these two destinations. That should have made the proposed spending in the railway project irrelevant and superfluous. It would make far better sense if the resources that were earmarked for the proposed project could be used for projects in any sector where the benefits would be proportionately much bigger than the expected ones from what was conceived as the railway project.
The PERC in its examination also focused on a string of projects where routine substantial expenditures from the ADP are being made as preparatory to starting full-fledged work on them. In many cases, these projects and programmes are dependent on resources availability or commitment and actual disbursement of foreign funding for them which are uncertain. Year after year, a great deal of resources are getting consumed in maintaining project sites and paying salaries to staff there in anticipation that work on these projects and programmes could start. But these costs are proving to be very wasteful as there is no knowing when these ventures will take off or whether these will take off at all. Even common sense dictates that all ADP programmes need to be started and ended under a strictly defined time-frame after full availability of funding for them and taking of all preparations to complete them at one go.
Clearly, the first task in order of importance ought to be selection of projects and programmes after those have been put through cost benefit analysis and assessed for their rate of returns and found to be worthwhile. Only then, these should merit an inclusion in the ADP and that too after finances have been fully lined up to start work on them immediately and to complete the same within a stipulated period. These aspects are very important to avoid the escalating costs from delays in implementation and to get promptly the benefits from completed projects and programmes.