'Bhagbanda' affecting implementation of dev. projects

Kathmandu, Feb. 26: Total sovereign portfolio of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Nepal has reached 2 billion US dollars with 1658.4 million dollars loan, 328.4 million dollars grant and 34.9 million dollars equivalent technical assistance.

According to Sarosh Khan, head of Portfolio Management Unit at the ADB Nepal Resident Mission, there are 25 loans, 21 grants and 22 technical assistances ongoing for 34 projects.

By the end of 2016, ADB’s cumulative assistance since its operation in 1969 in Nepal, stands at 4.9 billion USD.

Major chunk of ADB’s support goes to water and urban development, transport and energy projects.

“Of the total ADB active portfolio in Nepal, 30 per cent goes to water and urban development projects, 22 per cent each goes to transport and energy projects,” said Khan while speaking at 2016 Tripartite Portfolio Review Meeting on Sunday.

Likewise, Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project (EEAP) has 10 per cent portfolio in ADB’s support, education has 7 per cent, agriculture and natural resources has 6 per cent and other small projects have 3 per cent assistance.

However, contract of the projects and disbursement of the assistance money have been sluggish following the trend of previous years.

“Although Nepal’s portfolio performance has improved in 2016, challenges remain. Of the active portfolio, 44 percent or 883 million dollars is un-contracted and 1.3 billion remains undisbursed,” said deputy director general of ADB’s South Asia Department Diwesh Sharan.

In 2016, Nepal’s financial performance of ADB portfolio in terms of contract award was 359 million dollars and disbursement was 202 million dollars, both highest in ADB’s operational history in Nepal.

“We had 414 million USD target for contract award and 369 million dollars – 89 per cent – was achieved,” said Khan.

Transport, EEAP and water and urban development projects couldn’t meet the target of contract award.

ADB country director for Nepal Kenichi Yokoyama said that the performance was poor due to incompetent project directors.

“It is of critical importance to have competent project directors. There is a very high correlation between the strong project leadership and the performance of the project. The rapid progress of flagship projects such as Melamchi Water Supply Project and SASEC Power and Transport project are testament to this,” said Yokoyama.

He urged the policy makers and the media to advocate and ensure that project directors of high priority projects are deployed from among the most competent staffs of the implementing agencies.

According to him, the practice ‘bhagbanda’ must be refrained by all means in order to ensure timely project execution.

Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) Shanta Raj Subedi pointed towards the lack of enough preparation of the project documentation before its execution as one of the major behind poor performance and delay.

Saying that the project implementation could be supported by meaningful monitoring, he directed the concerned government agencies to intensify monitoring of the development projects, and also urged the ADB to enhance monitoring.

Chief of International Economic Cooperation and Coordination Division at the MoF Baikuntha Aryal said that there were problems in every step of the project implementation from its readiness to interagency coordination.

“In addition, we have socio-political issues, poor monitoring and supervision and resource constraints. Some development partners create problems by engaging themselves in to much nitty-gritty,” he said.

Meanwhile, the ADB has awarded the Melamchi Water Supply Project as the Best Management Team for 2016. Kathmandu Valley Water Supply Improvement Project Project and SASEC Power System Expansion Project were the runner ups.