ISLAMABAD, Nov 12 (Express Tribune): More than half of the World Bank-funded portfolio of federal projects worth $6.7 billion has been declared unsatisfactory or problematic by the lender, highlighting deep-rooted problems that have remained unaddressed for years due to serious governance issues.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the World Bank, the largest creditor of Pakistan, have recently completed a review of the $6.7 billion lending for 20 projects. These schemes are managed by the federal government.
Details showed that only $2.9 billion worth of projects were on track, although some of those were also facing issues that required solutions. Progress on a major chunk of $3.4 billion worth of projects was found partially satisfactory while another $453 million worth of schemes were declared problematic, according to government officials.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs undertook the review with the dual purpose of gauging the performance and finding the possibility of enhancing disbursements to compensate for some of the shortfalls in the backdrop of external financing gap of $6.5 billion.
The worst-performing departments include the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), which has been run by retired military generals for decades. The projects administered by the National Transmission and Despatch Company, Federal Board of Revenue, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Finance and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) were also facing serious execution-related problems, according to the officials.'
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