Dhaka free to spend $1.7b WB fund :We Welcome This Change Of Mind
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have softened their conditions and processes regarding loan assistance for Bangladesh, the finance minister said Friday.WB has set Bangladesh free to spend its unused $ 1.7 billion, stuck for different conditions, on any project it wants, AMA Muhith told reporters at the ZIA International Airport, after returning from two key international conferences in Cyprus and Turkey.‘Officials at the WB-IMF annual meeting, upon our request, have said that they would soften conditions for Bangladesh. Along with that they have permitted us to spend the idle $ 1.7 billion on any project.The fund, due to non-compliance of different conditions, was not used, he added.The minister also said that WB has promised increased assistance to deal with the affects of the global recession.‘They did not say anything about the size of the assistance, but promised extra funds for development projects including the Padma Bridge.Muhith said that the IMF usually provides fund to stabilise a country’s balance of payments.‘Recently, they (IMF) have helped us with $ 300 million; our balance of payment is quite good now. I have told the IMF that we don’t need their assistance at this moment.A high-level six-member delegation from Bangladesh, led by Muhith, left on September 30 to join the Commonwealth finance ministers’ conference and the annual general meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.Commonwealth finance ministers sat in Limasol, Cyprus, from September 30 to October 3, while the Turkish city of Istanbul, hosted the WB-IMF annual meeting on October 6 and October 7Muhith said that both conferences focused on the ongoing global recession.‘The developed nations have been quite affected by the recession, some of the countries witnessed a 20 per cent or more fall in employment. Business and investment situation are not well also‘It seems that the recession would take time to fade out,’ he said, while sharing his experience with the media.Representatives from different nations recommended ‘stimulus packages’ to face this disaster.‘Bangladesh also needs to be cautious about the downturn.United News of Bangladesh adds, Muhith expressed his disappointment that there was no indication about the possible support to climate change adaptation expenditure against the country’s need of US$ 4 billion.‘There are lots of discussions in this regard, but the developed countries and multilateral organisations are yet to come up with concrete commitment,’ he said, adding that the global fund so far available for climate change is ‘highly inadequate and involves highly lengthy process.’He added that Japan and European Union have announced fund for this purpose, but the modalities of disbursement were not finalised yet
We welcome that the conditions for using the fund in the pipeline have been removed.We are not against conditions as such but sometimes the conditions are too unrealistic in situation like Bangladesh.We are also happy that conditions for further financial assistance will be softened.Too strict conditions make it impossible to benefit from such package.It is like giving by one hand and taking it away by another hand.About climate change, there is not much hope in the short term because the developed countries are more in distress because of the financial meltdown there.We have to depend on our ability and atart talking the issue as far as we can.
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