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Not quite a Midas touch by World Bank

Shah Husain Imam
IT is good news, maybeeven auspicious to an incurable optimist. But clearly it’s not of a kind you can greet with any unalloyed sense of achievement, or unreserved hilarity, let alone contentment. You do not have a town crier beating drums to announce such a piece of news enthusiastically. Come as it does the hardest way possible that largely of our own making, to say nothing of inviting some new conditions from the World Bank.
The World Bank declaring its reengagement in the S 2.90 billion Padma Bridge project with its pivotal loan of 3 1.20 billion, the government has apparently got Itself a reprieve but faces prerequisites tougher perhaps than the ones it has met.
These include putting in place 'a new procurement arrangement with enhanced oversight, to ensure transparency and clean construction of the bridge; investigations proceeding in a full. fair, and expeditious manner, and an independent External Panel to review the government’s investigation and report their findings to the government and the World Bank."
The conditions seem to be cast in stone but read between the Hives, one notices a thread of coherence weaving through the texture of the do’s and dont’s. The World Bank already had a procurement policy adopted by the AL government almost into its first year and then it got diluted downstream which the World Bank did not like. Now the procurement methodology will be obviously stringent and more demanding. Rightly so. one would have thought having regard to the importance of 'clean construction' of the bridge. This emphasis should be welcomed in
the backdrop of the lamuna bridge construction flaws.
Ensuring full, fair and expeditious investigation by the ACC under the watch of consortium partners and an External Panel at live operative level will pul to test the competence of our anti-graft body.The coordination would have to the impeccable with rules of business clearly set out in an implementation-friendly manner, otherwise the processes could hit unforeseen snags.
Time is of the essence not merely in terms keeping cost escalations within affoidability but also to obtain dividends from wider connectivity paradigm linked to parallel growth in live regional linkages framework. Already the project has been long
delayed with the cost estimate projected to escalate from 3 2.91 billion if completed In 2015 to 3 3.06 billion should it be completed in 2016.
five timeline clearly needs to be redrawn and with it the costing -quite a job cut out for the financiers and the Government of Bangladesh. Return of the World Bank in the project makes it essentially implementable. Any undue formalism however should be avoided.
In the ultimate analysis one would ask if die lessons have been learnt. let's not forger, what could be a sweet fruit has come dropping sowed on our lap
Happy as we might be we must take a serious re-look at our governmental thought-process which had gone completely haywire through
mindless pursuit of self-defensive, ego-driven theatrics. The people were bewildered, thrown absolutely out of their wits, having no clues whatsoever about how to maintain mental equilibrium through an unnecessary rollei-coaster ride.
The Work! Bank stuck to its guns with an intensity proportionate to the Bangladesh government's repeated denials of any real or suspected wrongdoing. We were out to prove a John Kefner maxim: "An official denial Is de facto confirmation* - to an amusing level.
The drags on Abul Hossain and Mashiur Rahman were unrelenting in a prevailing stereotypical perception that high-ups in the government look to have a finger on any large pie. T he reputation of the government was staked in personal loyalties of a few individuals. This, to an extent that fingers of suspicion got pointed to very high quarters in the establishment. Suspicion has a way of stewing In its own juice just as conspiracy theories multiply in their own momentum. Primarily because the contents of the letters of World Bank were not made public, the statements the government Issued in defense of its position, its occasional swaggers had all the effect of dishing out prevarications. In other words, peddling travesty of truth. There were surely honourable ways of coming unstuck from the corners we kept pushbig ourselves to.
in light of such handling of the affair, it doesn't appear that the World Bank has snubbed us. rather we have insulted ourselves. Nobody can humiliate us if we in die first place had not by injudicious acts and knee-jetk reactions dug into self-denigrated trenches.
th* It 6UKO-, XAv Olt>/ Star.
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