Online Desk: Adviser to the interim government on the
Ministries of Planning and Education Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud on Wednesday said that the
main goals of the current government are to stopping wastage and misuse of
funds and curbing corruption in development schemes while it is also pursuing
highly to contain the inflation rate.
“It’s very much urgent to us on how to ensure quality of development works
rather than increasing the development budget size. Our main goals are to
stop wastage and misuse of funds and also to curbing corruption. In doing so,
if the expenditure remains low and the budget size is trimmed, then to me
it’s not a disadvantage,” he said.
The Planning Adviser was replying to a volley of questions at the NEC
conference room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area while briefing
reporters about the first ECNEC meeting of the interim government held today
at the Chief Adviser’s Office in Tejgaon.
Noting that the macroeconomic situation of the country is passing through a
tough time, he hoped that the exchange rate would come to a stable condition
while the internal resources mobilization would also get a momentum.
“For containing inflation, it’s necessary to conduct necessary exercise on
where to contain the budget deficit. But, it’s very …very much necessary
for us to contain the inflation,” he added.
Asked to what extent the current ADP size would be trimmed, the Adviser said
it’s not possible right at this moment to project it as the government is
still unclear about the possible sources of funding to meet the budgetary
expenditure.
In this connection, he mentioned that they did not know even few days back
that the World Bank would come up with fresh $1 billion funding if the almost
died or ‘freezer’ projects are not processed further. The World Bank has
proposed to provide the amount as budget support, he added.
Dr Mahmud said that all the development partners including the USAID are
showing their keen interest to fund the government’s fresh development
projects even they are saying that they have no reservation in continuing
funding against the ongoing projects.
Regarding undertaking new development projects, he said the government would
move cautiously and steadily through analyzing the possible sources of
funding and after around five months, it would be possible to figure out the
revised ADP size.
The Planning Adviser informed that they have almost amended the project
formulation and implementation process as the main weaknesses lie in project
implementation process as most of the project directors over the years were
politically motivated while they were also influential people.
Even the contractors tried to accomplish their task as per their wishes
resulting in time overrun and cost overrun of projects leading to the misuse
and wastage of fund.
“The project scrutiny and formulation process will almost remain the same,
but we’ll try our best to minimize the bureaucratic tangles and thus speedily
process those for approval by ECNEC. Side by side we’ll attach some
conditions before the executing agencies for implementing the projects
successfully since implementation is the main thing,” he added.
The Adviser alleged that earlier in the past there were unnecessary
interventions over the development projects while there was no accountability
by the implementing agencies after the projects were approved at the ECNEC.
