Govt faces chellenge to implement 50 pc of ADP in a month

Not possible, encourage misuse of public fund: GEF

Farhad Chowdhury: According to statistics, 50 percent of the ADP will have to be implemented in the last months to complete development activities as per the target, which is absolutely impossible. This means that a large amount of ADP money for the current financial year is ultimately remaining unspent.
The president of the Global Economist Forum Dr. Enayet Karim said that 50 pc of the ADP never possible to implement. “It will encourage misuse of public money,” he added.
The current fiscal year 2023-24 is almost over, the implementation of the development project has not picked up peacefully. Project implementation is generally faster at the end of the fiscal year than at the beginning. This time it was not possible. As a single month, the annual development program-ADP implementation rate in April is only 6.96 percent.
It is quite a bit less than the same month of last financial year. ADP was implemented at the rate of 8.68 percent in that month. And in the first 10 months of the current financial year, less than half of the total allocation of ADP has been implemented.
This rate is only 49.26 percent, which is the lowest in the same period of the last three fiscal years.
According to the analysis of the updated report of the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Department of the Ministry of Planning-IMED, in the first 10 months of the current financial year, about Tk 1 lakh 25 thousand 316 crores of ADP allocation has been spent. The implementation rate was 50.33 percent during the same period of the last financial year. The amount of expenditure was Tk 1 lakh 19 thousand 64 crores. The previous year i.e. 2021-22 fiscal year, the implementation rate for the same period was 54.57 percent. The expenditure is Tk 1 lakh 19 thousand 830 crores. However, the implementation rate for FY 2020-21 was lower than the current FY, 49.09 percent. In the same period of that financial year, the amount of expenditure was Tk 1 lakh 2 thousand 730 crores. ADP implementation rate was low at that time due to Corona epidemic.
In the past 10 months, the rate of use of foreign loans and grants was higher than the government’s own money in terms of expenditure. During this time, project loans and grants have been used for more than 58 percent of the total allocation, while government sources have spent 43.91 percent. Such a trend has been seen in previous fiscal years as well.
IMED Secretary Abul Kashem Mohiuddinasked to know the reason for this slow implementation of ADP told Daily Industry that due to the austerity policy of the government, several sectors such as training could not be spent as per the allocation. Many projects were not exempted for the same reason. Apart from this, project implementation is hampered due to lack of proper feasibility verification. Giving an example, he said, IMED’s inspection of a tourist bus project in the city showed that such a project is not suitable for Bangladesh. Eventually the project was called off. He said that IMED has discussed this matter with the concerned secretaries and project managers to increase the speed of project implementation.
According to IMED’s report, among the 15 ministries and departments of the maximum allocation in ADP in 10 months, the Prime Minister’s Office, Shipping and Health Services Department are lagging behind in implementation. The implementation rate of Prime Minister’s Office is 34.42 percent, Ministry of Shipping is 33.58 percent and Health Services Department is 37.33 percent.