Many government ministries have sought lower foreign assistance than what is allocated in the development budget as they failed to complete the target project work in the first half of this fiscal.
Ministries like health, shipping, education and water resources have sought lower project aid (PA) than its budget outlay in fiscal year (FY) 2021-22, insiders said on Friday.
The Economic Relation Division (ERD) in late December sat with all ministries and divisions to consult their funding requirements in the upcoming revised annual development programme (RADP).
The ERD has recently initiated to revise the PA allocations for the upcoming RADP.
The government has formulated a Tk 2.25-trillion ADP for FY22 allocating some Tk 880.24 billion in PA from foreign aid.
Ministries and divisions spent only Tk 440.61 billion, 18.61 per cent of the total ADP allocation during the July-November period, discloses the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.
Out of the spending, project aid utilisation was lower than their budget spending rate from the government's internal resources in the first five months of FY22, the official data showed.
"We consulted all ministries and divisions from December 22 to 27. Many ministries and agencies sought lower funds than… their expenditure targets in the development budget," said a senior ERD official.
Meanwhile, some big-budget ministries, especially fast-track project implementers, demanded more time to supply their fund requirements in the RADP.
"We've got fund requirements from almost all the ministries except some big ones. We're waiting for their revised fund requirements," the official said.
"After two weeks, we're expecting that the revised PA allocations would be finalised as we'll get a concrete picture of the revised foreign aid fund demands by ministries and divisions."
Covid-19 has severely affected the national economy, thus hitting implementation of various projects.
In the current ADP, power division received the highest Tk 169.44 billion PA allocation, followed by science and technology ministry (Tk 160 billion), local government division (Tk 111.48 billion), railway ministry (Tk 102.25 billion), and roads and highways division (Tk 80.42 billion) and health division (Tk 72.85 billion).
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