Stopping wastage of fund, curbing corruption govt’s main goal: Wahiduddin Mahmud

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.

Adviser to the interim government on the Ministries of Planning and Education Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud said on Wednesday, reports BSS.

"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 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.

Mentioning that the government wants to expedite the process for implementing the foreign-aided projects, the Planning Adviser said a huge amount of foreign aid was still in the pipeline since those have less scope for irregularities, attach conditions and usually have strict monitoring.

He said that many foreign aided projects are still in the 'freezer' of the Planning Commission for many years and under the current circumstances, the World Bank has recently offered the government for providing $1 billion as budget support by December if such projects are released.

He said the Washington-based lending agency stands ready to provide more support in development projects.

Dr Wahiduddin said they are now finding it difficult to process fresh projects for giving approval since many of the draft projects of the previous government were politically motivated while the Planning Commission officials are scrutinizing those.

He said the day's ECNEC meeting took a decision to give approval to the foreign aided projects while the concerned ministries and divisions could further scrutinize those after approval in order to make those time befitting and epoch making.

"Our aim is to utilize as much as foreign aid in the pipeline and thus undertake more development projects with support from the development partners," he said adding that some short-term and long-term projects would also be undertaken side by side the government would remain cautious that the pipeline remains standard.

Answering to a question, the Planning Adviser asserted that the interim government would not resort to any kind of misuse of fund which the country's people could be rest assured.

He informed that the Ministry of Planning would issue a circular very soon on the project scrutiny, formulation and implementation aspects.

Dr Wahiduddin alleged that in the past regime, many big and mega projects were undertaken where the costs of the components were three to four times higher than international standards. "Our government will remain vigil to avert reoccurrence of such things,"

Replying to another question, he said although all politically motivated projects were not bad projects, but some projects were taken in the past out of ill political motive.

Blasting the previous government for undertaking the Bus Rapid Transit project in Gazipur, he said quoting experts that the project was undertaken without having proper planning while there might be a need in the future to demolish that project.

He informed that the concerned agencies would remain more cautious in case of land acquisition for projects as such practice is associated with wastage of fund, irregularities and cutting of trees.

The Adviser said the previous government had long been advocating for availing the duty free and quota free access of products, but the fact is that following LDC graduation, there would be more need for striking bilateral agreements.

"For this, there is a need for boosting the skills and competitive edge of the economy. In doing so, we need more fresh projects in education and technology," he said.