HOW telling an impact delayed implementation of foreign loan funded project has had on our development economy is brought into a sharp focus by a revelatory story in this paper yesterday. There has been a little known, yet quite haemorrhagic draining out of the national coffer, thanks to payment to development partners worth Tk 127 crore in last sixyears as 'commitment fees'.

This spelled a triple jeopardy, in a manner of speaking: first, we are having to pay a penalty; secondly, people are being deprived of benefits of what could have been a timely implemented project; and last but not least, there is likely to be cost escalation to the project.

To our mind, however, the prerequisites to release of funds have a ring of stringency about them, something that is generally associated with cluttered formalities that have traditionally accompanied disbursement of foreign project loans. But, of course, so long as we stood committed to fulfilling the prerequisites dovetailed to release of each instalment of loan we have to live up to the commitment. On this issue, however, we must try and negotiate easier terms, because it is our cash-trapped situation that in the first place propelled us into asking for loans.

This is not to detract from the fact that to the extent the delay in implementation has been induced by man-made factors and institutional deficiencies we must be obliged to remove the bottlenecks on our side. The multi-layered decision-making processes and the entirety of the implementation machinery need to be fully reformed. Historically, we have had poor fund utilisation records that has never been sufficiently addressed. It is time to do that. In this context, we believe the multilateral development financing institutions are showing signs of looking inward to see how best they can adapt to the realities on the ground and typicalities of national circumstances placing flexibility and pragmatism above conventions and set-piece formulae. Let both sides evolve a mutually acceptable development and environment-friendly mechanism for the good of the majority.