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Padma Bridge Funding

Jica extends time by three weeks

Staff Correspondent
Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) yesterday extended its loan effectuation deadline for three weeks for the Padma bridge project, a day after the Asian Development Bank extended its deadline by a month.
Jica has conveyed its decision to the Economic Relations Department (ERD) of the finance ministry, a well placed source intheministrytoldThe Daily Star.
Following the extension, Finance
Minister AMA Muhith said the government was very much optimistic about the revival of the project's loan deal with the World Bank.
“I'm hopeful about it and I've already said that," he told
reporters in front of his residence at Minto Road in the capital.
The loan effectuation date of the two co-financiers — ADB and Jica — was due to expire yesterday.
On Thursday the ERD wrote to the ADB and Jica for extending the deadline so that
SEE PAGE 19 COL 4 FROM PAGE 1 the government gets more time for negotiation with the lead financier, the World Bank.
The ADB had pledged a $615-million loan and Jica $400 million for the construction of the 6.15km bridge that would connect the capital with the country's 16 southwestern districts.
The WB cancelled its $1.2 billion credit for the bridge, the biggest-ever infrastructure project in Bangladesh, on June 29 alleging a "corruption conspiracy".
In September last year, the global lender suspended the fund, saying that some Bangladeshi officials and executives of a Canadian company and some individuals were involved in the conspiracy.
Later, the WB in a letter to the government gave certain conditions for ensuring corruption-free implementation of the $2.97-billion project.
The conditions included removal of Syed Abul Hossain from office.
When the allegation was first raised in September last year, Abul was communications minister. In the face of widespread criticism, he was removed from the ministry in December last year and was made information and communications technology minister. The WB, however, insisted that Abul must resign from office for it to reconsider its suspension on the loan.
Abul did resign, but that came nearly a month after the WB had scrapped the deal. He has all along denied that he was involved in corruption in theproject.
Recently, a highly placed government source has said prime minister's Economic Affairs Adviser Mashiur Rahman has to resign to meet the last condition of the World Bank.
Mashiur too denied that he had anything to do with the corruption conspiracy, but said he would go if the government asked him to.