The IMF projects that consumer prices in the country will rise by 7.9 percent by the end of the fiscal year
Hasina asks why all government projects miss deadlines: official
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered officials to find out why all the government projects, even small, keep missing the completion deadline all the time.
Published : 8 Dec 2020, 04:26 PM
Updated : 8 Dec 2020, 04:26 PM
Hasina raised the question while discussing a proposal to extend the term and cost of a project to modernise agricultural information services and strengthen digital
agriculture information and communication at the ECNEC meeting on Tuesday.
When she asked why the Tk 687.1 million project, started in January 2018 and was to end in June 2020, needs an extension, no-one could answer as the project director was not present, said Shamsul Alam, a member of the Planning Commission.
Besides a two-year extension, the authorities sought to raise the estimated expenditure by Tk 412.9 million to more than Tk 1.09 billion.
“Take steps for quick completion of all the projects. Why are all projects delayed? It is a small project. It should not have taken so long,” Hasina, who joined the meeting via video conferencing, was quoted as saying.
The prime minister also expressed her “displeasure” about another proposal for extension of the deadline for completing a project to develop and widen roads in Pirojpur and Barguna, according to Shamsul.
The government had cleared the project three years ago at an estimated cost of Tk 1.04 billion and the deadline was one year. Now the people involved with the scheme have asked that the estimated cost be raised to Tk 1.49 billion.
“You couldn’t complete the project after taking it up in 2017. This project should not have taken such a long time to finish,” Hasina reportedly said.
“It was an old road. You could have done it if you had wanted to. Please stop these revisions, seeking a raise in project cost. You should finish the projects within the deadline. It can’t be that you bring a project and get it extended with more funding all the time.”
No such project will be extended in future, she added, according to Shamsul.
“She asserted that the projects being taken from now on must end within the stipulated time,” he said.
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