World Bank's negligence, burden falls on project implementer
Graphics: Agamir Somoy
An integrated initiative was undertaken in Bangladesh to increase agricultural production, ensure effective water use, and enhance the capacity of rural communities in adapting to climate change. About five years ago, this integrated project, named the Climate Smart Agriculture and Water Management Project (CSAWMP), received approval. The majority of the funding was to come from the World Bank. The implementing agencies were the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB), the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), and the Department of Fisheries. Among these, the fulfillment of BWDB's objectives has now fallen into doubt. An evaluation by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of the Ministry of Planning states that this happened due to various shortcomings of the World Bank. Yet, the responsibility is now falling on the project implementers.
An IMED official said that obtaining approval for hiring consultants for the Tk 1,182 crore project took two and a half years alone. This caused delays in all tender processes. The project has also faced audit objections. Yet, its tenure ends this month. Physical progress is only 28.56%. Expenditure stands at Tk 203 crore.
According to the IMED official, none of the 14 audit objections—including non-compliance with public procurement regulations, unauthorized expenditure, and overpayments—have been resolved. Consequently, the effective use of foreign loan funds is at risk.
The second draft of the IMED evaluation report has been received by Agamir Somoy. The final report will be completed by June 30th.
A review of the report shows that the World Bank loan constitutes Tk 850 crore of the project's total cost. Following the World Bank's guidelines, the process of tendering, evaluating, and hiring consultants for Service Procurement Package-1 (Consultancy Service for Design and Construction Supervision) alone took about 2 years and 5 months. Consequently, no package tenders could be called at the start of the project. After hiring consultants, tenders for each package had to be called around 2024 and 2025.
The draft report states that against the six service procurement packages, tenders have been called and contracts signed for five packages. According to the DPP (Development Project Proposal), under Service Package-3 (PCU Support Expert for Procurement), the contract should have been signed by March 8, 2022. However, the contract with the procurement expert was signed on February 12, 2023. This means one year of the project elapsed before the procurement expert was hired. Due to the delayed contract, implementation under the project was slow. Therefore, IMED believes it is necessary to ensure the appointment of a procurement expert and parallel procedures within the first 90 days of approval for any foreign-aided project in the future.
The report further states that the loan agreement of Tk 850 crore with the World Bank was signed on March 15, 2022, and remains effective until November 2026. However, based on the physical and financial progress of the project up to last April, full implementation within the stipulated timeframe is now uncertain. Although there are no structural problems in the disbursement process, the slow pace is lowering the disbursement ratio, creating a risk of hindering the full utilization of the loan. Additionally, 14 audit objections have been raised against the project from fiscal year 2022-23 to 2024-25, none of which have been finally resolved to date. Most objections concern deviations from public procurement regulations, unauthorized expenditure, weak contract management, overpayments, and inconsistencies between bills and actual progress. In this situation, the project's image and the confidence of development partners are at risk of being damaged.
Regarding the issue, Dr. Zahid Hussain, former Lead Economist at the World Bank's Dhaka office, told Agamir Somoy that before broadly blaming the World Bank, the matter needs to be carefully examined. Because there is no possibility that project officials sent letters while the World Bank sat idle with folded hands. Surely there is something to this.
Dr. Hussain believes that the ministry likely did not appoint consultants according to the World Bank's procurement guidelines, leading to disagreement.
He claims that the World Bank regularly monitors any project. Additionally, accountability is ensured in two stages: first at the Country Director level, and second, the project's Task Team Leader is accountable to their supervisor. It is unimaginable that approving a consultant for a project would take this long. In this case, the correspondence that took place needs to be reviewed.
Inquiry reveals that the project is being implemented by the Bangladesh Water Development Board under the Ministry of Water Resources. It is being implemented across 28 upazilas in 17 districts of eight divisions of the country, with a tenure from January 2022 to June 30, 2026. The main objective is to rehabilitate and modernize the infrastructure of completed FCD/FCDI projects under the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB). This aims to develop climate-resilient water resource management and expand climate-smart agricultural practices in crop and fish production systems.
Project officials stated that according to the approved DPP, tenders have been called and contracts signed for five out of eight procurement packages for goods, and 58 lots out of 25 packages for works. Among these, 100% work on five packages has been completed, and work on the remaining packages is ongoing. For service procurement, tenders have been called and contracts signed for five out of six packages. Among the project's main activities, against targets, the following have been completed: rehabilitation of inlets/outlets: 11 out of 193; construction of water control structures: 16 out of 85; river dredging: 1 km out of 11.95 km; embankment rehabilitation: 18.42 km out of 335.47 km; riverbank protection: 1.03 km out of 8.92 km; and canal re-excavation: 116.42 km out of 345.93 km. Due to complications related to land acquisition under the project, and delays in construction due to scarcity of soil and space caused by increased land prices as markets and homesteads have developed near flood control embankments, progress has been slowed.
