ISLAMABAD, Feb 27: The Asian Development Bank will provide $1.458 billion to Pakistan for 12 projects this year, but has ruled out funding the package of dams announced recently by President Pervez Musharraf without the stakeholders’ consensus.

“The government has announced these dams as one package that will need over $20 billion. This is a huge job. We can’t fund this package until there is a consensus among all the stakeholders,” said ADB Country Director Peter L. Fedon.

Briefing newsmen on the performance of the in Pakistan during the past year and its planning for 2006, he said some of the dams would displace thousands of people.

The ADB had clear guidelines for rehabilitation and relocation of people affected by dams and some environmental safeguards, he said, adding that the bank could not fund any project which did not follow the safeguards.

He, however, said: “We can’t stay aside because this is strategically important for Pakistan.”

In reply to a question, he expressed his concern over lack of capacity of the local governments and the Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority for appropriately utilising the funds poured in by the international community after the Oct 8 earthquake.

“The magnitude of response is not equal to the magnitude of disaster. The kind of amount these departments are now dealing with is also scaring. Those who once approved a $3 million project will have to approve now a $30 million or even a $300 million project,” Mr Fedon said.

But the final message was that no ‘big mistakes’ had been committed in the earthquake areas so far, he said. He said the ADB fully supported training programmes for the ERRA and local government staff and also proposed the recruitment of well-paid experts in the long-term.

ADB’s Macro-economic Specialist Ghulam Qadir said there were contradictions in the growth statistics of the State Bank and the Federal Bureau of Statistics.