Annual Development Programme (ADP) is an organised list of projects in various sectors and allocations for them for a year out of a Five Year Plan period for implementation of the government’s development policies, programmes and investments plans.
The ADP is prepared on the basis of the year’s development budgets approved by the Parliament. The Planning Commission formulates the ADP in the light of the basic objectives and goals stated in the Five Year Plan.
The draft ADP once formulated is placed in the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for approval. In the ADP fields like national economic development issues get priority. Funds are allocated to implement development projects. Internal and external funds are used to finance projects. Availability of funds is a major concern in preparing the ADP, which is mostly dependent on foreign aid.
The practice of formulating ADP by splitting a Five Year Plan and implementation thereof, stated since the First Five Year Plan (1955-60) of the Provincial government of the then East Pakistan.
The first ADP of Bangladesh was formulated during 1972-73 with an outlay of Tk 5.01 billion, 75per cent of which was supported by foreign aid. Over the years the ADP has grown consistently. ADP of Bangladesh has been heavily dependent upon foreign funds. Most of the time the share of foreign funds in financing ADP allocation has been more than 70 per cent until 1979-80 and then it dropped to 64per cent in the following two years and then again increased to about 80 per cent in the next three years. So it is observed that ADP fund allocation has a fluctuating trend. Poor disbursement of fund has been attributed to this fluctuating trend.
The government has a practice of revising the ADP almost every year. At times government changes the ADP by inclusion of new or exclusion of some listed projects in the middle of the year.
More often, delays in approval of projects or in creation of appropriate infrastructural facilities for them lead to such revision other causes for revision include procurement related problems and shortage of Taka counterpart fund for the project. There are cases when ADPs are revised in favour of increasing allocations in response to claims to of the implementing ministries /agencies for additional allocation of both local and foreign currencies.
Every year the quantum of allocation in the ADP is being increased on the ground particular national strategy in relation to eco-social and infrastructural development of the country, human resource development, reduction of poverty and increase in incomes. Statistics reveals that actual expenditure in this head rocketed to 10 per cent per annum.
In Bangladesh ADP most of the time has been formulated with high hopes. However, it has been found that at the end of the ADP year the performance has been mostly poor.
During my stay in the civil service it has been observed by me that ADP’S poor implementation has been due to good number factors. They are:-
* ADP is mostly politically biased rather than development oriented
* ADP is unrealistic and very highly ambitious programme which is often unachievable from the beginning
* While drawing ADP the implementation capability of the implementing agencies are hardly taken in to consideration
* Bureaucrats who have very little or no expertise are assigned to act as Project Directors. As such they lack commitment and rely on people who have different agenda to achieve out of the project
* Prioritization of programme hardly gets into the agenda based on needs
* Most of the time consultants are assigned to the projects, who are heavily influenced by the Project Directors. As such individual interest get preference over project interest
* In the past people from different professions dominated the Parliament. As such a good combination of groups managed the economy of which politician and lawyers were prominent
A recent study now revealed that at present Parliament is dominated either by bureaucrats or business people. Previously the percentage of politicians was around 15per cent and business people almost nil. Now the ratio has been reversed.
The ratio now is politician 2 to 3 per cent and business people is 60 per cent or slightly more. So while drawing ADP, business perspective gets more importance than development perspective. As a result we should not achieve what we are supposed to achieve on development field.
While preparing ADP inflation has generally not been taken into account. As such half way through the project the whole project is to be revised,
Political instability, corruption and lack of funds also have their part in poor implementation of ADP.
In such a back drop development experts from different sectors have to be included in the project implementation team.
Since the experts have no individual interest and they are mostly committed to the cause for which they have been inducted, they have been ready to serve the client or government. Government can use them as a line of defence for better and effective implementation of ADP.
The writer is former Director General, EPB. He can be contacted at [email protected]
