Donors involved in micro-management: Finance Ministry

Kathmandu, Aug 16: Chief of International Economic Cooperation Coordination Division  (IECCD) at the Ministry of Finance Baikuntha Aryal said that the international donor agencies in Nepal are involved in micro-management following their distributive programmes and projects in the country.

“Some of the donors are implementing more than 20 types of small projects rather than focusing on a few large projects. They are working with more than two dozen local agencies,” he said at the meeting of Development Committee of the Legislature-Parliament on Tuesday.

Aryal said that the delay in project completion was due to laxity of government authorities.

He maintained that the donor agencies lacked sufficient rights to make and execute project related decision. This has made the process lengthy as the country offices need to communicate with their headquarters for every new step.

He said that the monitoring and supervision of the development project implemented in collaboration with development partners was very weak.

“There is a very weak coordination between the field activities and the ministries which has promoted negligence on the part of contractors,” he remarked.

Aryal stated that the people at the project sites had been demanding unrealistic payment for the land acquisition. “Sometimes, people make demands that are not concerned with the project at all,” he said.

Secretary of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development, Mahendra Gurung said that the donors wanted to develop personal relations with the project chiefs and some of them even demanded to keep their favourite ones in their projects.

Secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development Arjun Karki stated that the politics and administration were hugely responsible behind the delay of donor funded projects.

“Once we accepted the terms and conditions laid out by the donor agencies, we should adhere to them,” he said. 

Keshav Sharma, deputy director general of the Department of Roads, said that his office was facing problems in clearing the forest area, supply of stones, pebbles and sand, land revenue and survey.

“Even the construction of Gautam Buddha International Airport in Bhairahawa has been affected by the short supply of stones and pebbles,” he remarked.

He informed that the government was planning to contract the road expansion project of Butwal-Narayangarh, Butwal-Bhairahawa and Bhairahawa-Taulihawa in 2017.

The Butwal-Narayangarh section of the Mahendra Highway and Butwal-Bhairahawa road will be expanded into four lane road while Bhairahawa-Taulihawa road will be expanded into double lane.

Director general of the Department of Local Infrastructure Development and Agriculture Roads (DOLIDAR) Ram Krishna Sapkota said that there was a shortage of technical staff at the local level.