Only half of ADP money spent in 10 months

The implementation of the annual development programme in the first ten months of the current fiscal year was only half the revised allocation, mainly due to low spending on the Padma bridge project.

According to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, Tk 45,108 crore was utilised from the allocation in July-April, which is about 50 percent of the revised allocation of Tk 91,000 crore for the year.

The original ADP allocation last year was Tk 97,000 crore; it was later revised down for the lack of ability to implement it.

Of the 10 large ministries and divisions, the Bridges Division spent only 41 percent of its revised allocation in 10 months.

The number of projects under the bridges division is only 3, of which, the Padma bridge project received the highest allocation. In the first nine months of the fiscal year, Tk 892 crore has been utilised in the project.

The Bridges Division got an allocation of Tk 7,400 crore in the current fiscal year. The total estimated cost of the bridge is Tk 28,793 crore.

However, the allocation was slashed in the revised budget and proposed at Tk 5,009 crore.

An official of the Padma bridge project said they may eventually get Tk 3,700 crore in allocation and they are hopeful about spending that amount in the current fiscal year.

Shafiqul Islam, director of the Padma bridge project, told The Daily Star that the project is progressing physically, but payments are sometimes made later. As a result, progress is not seen in financial terms, he added.

Some of the project's work is being done in China and when the materials will be handed over, payments made to the Chinese contractor can be seen in the implementation report, he said.

There are some technical complexities in the approval project this year as well, which are expected to be resolved by next year when work will begin in full swing, he added.

So far, till March this year, Tk 9,134 crore has been spent on the Padma bridge project. In the next fiscal year, more than Tk 6,000 crore is going to be allocated.

Besides the Bridges Division, many other big ministries and divisions have been slow in terms of spending.

The Road Transport and Highways Division spent 52 percent of its revised allocation in the first 10 months, health ministry 38 percent, railways 46 percent, education 48 percent, water resource 44 percent, primary and mass education 55 percent, and energy division 55 percent.

Of the total revised allocation, 48 percent of the government's own fund was spent, which was 53 percent in the same period last fiscal year; 52 percent of foreign funds have been utilised in the period this year, which was 60 percent last fiscal year.

The World Bank's latest Bangladesh Development Update released last month said, in view of the significant infrastructure deficit, better and faster implementation of the ADP, particularly that of growth enhancing infrastructure projects, remains a top policy priority.

The carryover projects that could perhaps be completed by FY2016 have not progressed fast enough, it added.

Further costs and time overruns for these priority projects cannot be ruled out.

In this regard, the report cited an example and said, just recently the estimated cost of Dhaka-Chittagong four-lane highway was revised upwards for the fourth time.

“The ability to implement the ADP projects, in time and within initial estimates, remains elusive,” the report said.

Ministries and divisions usually speed up spending in the last few months of a fiscal year.