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Environment ministry to restore image

Minister tells of corruption by officials

Staff Correspondent
The environment and forest ministry is trying to regain its image lost because of allegations of ministry officials' involvement in illegal logging, clearing forest and gobbling up project money, said Anawar Hossain Manju who holds the portfolio.
The minister, who took office six months ago, also admitted that the allegations about the mismanagement of climate fund have grounds.
"Not all the allegations of misusing climate fund are wrong. We have found a project in which money was allocated but we do not know the current status of the project," the minister said at a seminar yesterday organised by Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) at Brae Centre Inn in the capital yesterday.
Mentioning that the case was being investigated, Manju said his ministry has taken initiatives to audit all climate projects to ensure transparency in expenses so that the donor agencies do not have any confusion regarding climate finance governance.
He said this in response to a working paper presented by Zakir Hossain, chief of Climate Finance Governance Project ofTIB.
Zakir recommended that the government form a high powered climate financing commission comprising public servants, climate experts, representatives of affected communities, civil society members and media personnel.
The transparency watchdog also asked the government to bolster diplomatic efforts to get the grants and aid committed by donors.
Bangladesh has two climate funds --Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund (BCCTF) financed by itself and
Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund (BCCRF) run on foreign aid, according to the TIB.
Starting from 2010, the Bangladesh government on its own has allocated Tk 2,700 crore till 2013-14 fiscal. Sixty-six percent of the fund was allocated to different short term projects.
The remaining 34 percent has been reserved to tackle aftermaths of disasters, should there be any.
As for the foreign funding, Bangladesh has so far received $188.2 million of which $146.2 million has been released.
The TIB also recommended that the government bring rationality and coordination in fund distribution.
The local government, rural development and cooperative ministry is implementing 30.7 percent of the total fund, the energy, power and mineral resources ministry 17.5 percent, the water resources ministry 16.9 percent while the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs got an allocation of only 0.1 percent ofthe fund.