|
Delay may create strained relations with donors, squeeze aid flow
Govt taking sweet time to form joint committee for PRS implementation
AZM Anas
12/27/2005
The government is set to miss the deadline of constituting a joint-committee to prepare an implementation plan aimed at kick-starting the anti-poverty plan, PRS.
The joint-committee, to be chaired by the Economic Relations Division (ERD), is supposed to thrash out a joint implementation plan by the end of this month, official sources confirmed.
But the relevant government agency has failed to do the needful to come up with such a plan under the PRS, sources added.
The delay in preparing the joint plan on the part of the ERD is feared to make the relations between the government and the development partners "edgy".
"The joint plan is unlikely to be prepared by the current month as agreed upon earlier. Even, the ERD is yet to establish the joint-body," a highly-placed source said, requesting not to be named.
"We're pledge-bound to prepare the action plan as agreed during the PRS Implementation Forum. Such a delay may antagonise the donors," the source hinted.
In the three-day PRS Implementation Forum held in the city last month, both sides agreed to form the committee and also work out a joint implementation plan by the end of the current month.
The plan is part of an 11-point agenda the government officials and their counterparts in the donor community worked out in the Forum.
"Development partners share concerns about PRSP implementation, particularly about maintaining the reform momentum given the limited time before elections," Praful C Patel of the World Bank said at the end of the Forum.
The government officials also acknowledged that the political priorities and the recent rise in religious militancy may prompt the government to backtrack from pushing ahead unpopular reform agenda.
"Now, the main issue is governance … we've also placed it high on the agenda. Unless the government improves it, the donors may cut assistance in the foreseeable future, thus putting the anti-poverty plan at peril," an ERD official apprehended.
Of the total action plan, other important ones are reform in public procurement and bringing the government closer to the people at the grassroots.
On the procurement reform, the government is yet to enact the Public Procurement Law-2005, apparently due to resistance from a section of cabinet members.
The donors suggested that the government enhance block grants to the Union Parishad (UP) level in a bid to improve local governance and service delivery at the grassroots level.
A WB official said unless the government pursued the policy reform agenda within the PRS framework, it would fail to steer the economy towards a sustained higher growth.
"Ultimately, the government may see its aid package for the implementation of the PRS go down," he added.
|