Govt pursuing quality expenditure, averts misuse of fund

The interim government, which is completing its one-year term following the changeover of power through the student-led mass uprising last year, is pursuing quality expenditure in development schemes alongside checking misuse of fund to reach real benefits to the country's people.

Coming out of the fascist regime's extravagant practice of making hefty allocations in the Annual Development Programmes (ADPs) leading to misuse of fund amid lack of capacity from the executing agencies, the interim government has been pursuing such strategy under which any ongoing project may come under intense monitoring anytime by the concerned authorities to ensure optimum utilization of the taxpayers money.

In continuation of this, the government may also revise the ADP for the current fiscal year (FY26) in this December, which may be regarded as an unusual practice, as the ADP is usually revised in March. This attempt may give enough time to the implementing agencies to utilize their revised allocations for successfully implementing the development schemes.

Talking to BSS on the overall operations of the Ministry of Planning over the last one year alongside its roadmap for reforms, Planning Adviser Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud said that the revised ADP was downsized in the just concluded fiscal year (FY25) with the implementation rate also becoming less due to various reasons.

"Our goal is to avert misuse of fund, becoming cost-efficient and vying for quality expenditure … implementation of many projects was halted due to mismanagement as many contractors fled the scene following the changeover of power last year. Even, in some cases, the concerned project directors could not be found," he added.

But, in this fiscal year, the government thinks that the implementation of the budget and the ADP would be much better since an implementable size of ADP has been undertaken in this year.

"Most probably, we'll try to revise the ADP in December next instead of the usual practice of March, in a bid to infuse dynamism into the pace of ADP implementation," he added.

Explaining this, he said if the ADP is revised in March, then the ministries and divisions which are in need of more allocations could not utilize fully the received additional allocation in the last three months of a fiscal year.

"We're trying to float this practice for the first time in the country since the additional ADP allocation against sectors, ministries and divisions often fail to yield much better results since there remains a short period of time to fully utilize those," he said.

He went on saying, "If ADP is revised in the middle of a fiscal year, then the revised ADP allocation can be utilized fully with priority," he added.

When Asked whether there is any qualitative change in the planning process over the last one year of the interim government, General Economics Division (GED) Member of the Planning Commission Dr Monzur Hossain said that there were a good number of changes in the planning process.

"Although structural changes are yet to be implemented, but there have been qualitative changes," he said, adding that there is no doubt that some unnecessary projects have been excluded side by side the ongoing projects have gone through scrutiny for which the RADP implementation rate in the last fiscal year (FY25) became less.

Dr Monzur said this downtrend in implementation rate does not indicate that the government is also compromising with the quality. "Although the expenditure has been less in terms of amount, but I should say the quality has been increased … the most important thing is that the allocated amount is spent in the right area and in right place," he said.

"We all know that over the last few months, a lot of qualitative changes have been brought …the scrutiny process is now much better compared to the past while there is more scope for reforms in the planning process in the coming days," he added.

Dr Monzur said the successive political government can work on these and if so the public expenditure management would be good.

When asked to evaluate the overall macroeconomic state of the country, the Planning Adviser Dr Wahiduddin Mahmud said that the devastated economy which prevailed during the previous regime now not exists.

Although there are problems in the economy like on how to enhance investment, how to attract more FDI, he said this problem would not go away easily.

"But, the economy is now not in a fragile condition…it has now come to a state to move upward further. The economy has rebound from on the verge of destruction," he added.    

The Planning Adviser said that the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) has been made more active since the interim government assumed responsibility.

Earlier in the past, he said only the completed projects were evaluated by the IMED. But, now the IMED has been made much more active even at the field-level.

After field-level inspections by the IMED staff on the ongoing projects, he said the loopholes and deviations found during the visits are being informed to the concerned ministries and divisions.

If irregularities are unearthed in the schemes, then quick measures are being taken, he said. "This is a big development. After sending feedback to the concerned ministries and divisions, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) is also conducting investigations into the allegations," he said.

Earlier, the IMED did not inquire about the ongoing projects while such practice has started during the tenure of the interim government.

Whenever there is any clue or information of alleged corruption or irregularities, the Planning Adviser said the IMED is going to the field-level and thus conduct their evaluation and try to identify those who are liable for such malpractice.

The IMED is also providing the feedbacks to the concerned ministries and divisions based on their visits and thus the ACC is taking necessary steps accordingly.

He said the Public Procurement Rules (PPR) has also been amended and thus been approved by the Council of Advisers this time while its implementation would start once the rules and regulations in this regard are finalized.

But, a decision has already been taken to go for 100% implementation of e-tendering by all the procuring entities under the revised rules of the PPR.

Dr Mahmud said the progress in e-tendering is now 60% while directives are there to reach cent percent e-tendering at all the procuring entities.

When the amended law would be implemented, then issuance of 100% tenders through e-tendering would be made mandatory, he added.

He informed that the tender evaluation process under the revised version on PPR is being reshaped in consultation with the concerned stakeholders and experts.

Earlier in the past, the Planning Adviser said it was seen that the same contracting firms tend to dominate the tendering process in various ministries and divisions, but now such practice is expected to come to an end under such system.

He informed that it would take some three to four months to ensure its full enforcement.

The Planning Adviser said that earlier in the past, the government purchase committee used to consider the procurement proposals after those were approved by the ECNEC.

But, from now on, it won't happen anymore that the schemes approved by the ECNEC or works approved by the purchase committee would remain outside of the purview of monitoring. "This is also a part of more activating the IMED," he added.

Any ongoing project may come under monitoring at anytime of the implementation period and this does not mean that the project directors would continue to get the funding despite the deviations.

In continuation of this, he said the concerned authority has found deviations from the original DPPs in some schemes and thus measures have been taken accordingly.

He cited in the project formulation process, still there are many weaknesses and those could not be overcome overnight.

Earlier in the past, many foreign aided projects were undertaken without proper scrutiny for which the conditionalities were not in favour of the government.

In case of some large-scale or mega projects, Dr Mahmud said the government is negotiating with the concerned development partners be it in metro rail or BRT projects including some ongoing projects or in those large projects where loan agreements have already been signed.

In projects like Payra Port, he said the government is trying to re-negotiate or revisit on the loan agreements especially on those cases where there were excessive valuations.

"Besides, prior to the fresh loan agreements, we're also going thoroughly into the draft loan deals in a bid to cut unnecessary expenditure," he added.

"We hope that from project formulation to various tiers of project implementation and evaluation, the necessary reforms are under active consideration of the government to ensure improvement in procedures," he said, adding that an amendment would be made in the directive for project formulation, processing and implementation.

Asked about the frequent reoccurrence of cost over-run and time over-run in the development projects, Dr Mahmud said that most of the projects now under implementation were taken during the previous regime even most of the projects included in the ADP of the current fiscal year (FY26) are ongoing schemes.

"But, we're trying our best to re-evaluate those ongoing projects as far as possible to make cut in unnecessary expenditure since many projects were undertaken in the past out of political consideration. It is surely our priority to complete the ongoing projects although making cut in the expenditure," he added.

He said the government has also excluded some projects from the list where there were minimal expenditure and considered as unnecessary. "But, we're making our sincere efforts to complete those projects which witnessed significant expenditure and have gone through necessary revisions," he said.

Terming the small entrepreneurs as the 'lifeline' of the country's economy, Dr Mahmud said that the small entrepreneurs are the most important and vibrant part of the economy alongside the services sector, agriculture sector and the RMG sector.