KARACHI, Nov 13: Three consultants of the Asian Development Bank began on Tuesday a two-day ‘Project Management’ Workshop for the federal and provincial governments’ employees in relation to their on going $450m funding programme for 15 projects in various sectors in Sindh.

The ADB is financing three projects in agriculture and rural development, two in physical infrastructure, two in energy, seven in social infrastructure and one emergency assistance for drought relief.

“A number of these projects are experiencing delays in implementation due to unfamiliarity with ADB procedures and formalities of government approval of procurement matters,” informs an ADB communication on the objectives for organizing the project management workshop in Sindh and other provinces.

The ADB’s perception on the mismanagement and delays in implementation of the projects in Sindh is shared by the officials. “Mismanagement of resources, distorted priorities in inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral allocations, non-integration of needs and resources and lack of a well thought out strategy for short and long terms sustainable and evenly poised development has been the hallmark of our planning in the province,” is a loud echo of what a former Finance Secretary of Sindh remarked last year in an official document.

The Workshop began on Tuesday with a discussion on ADB’s project life cycle which focused on various stages in the project cycle and role of the government in the process. The Workshop coordinator explained the project identification in country assistance plan, preparation of the project and feasibility study by the recipient country followed by fact-finding and appraisal and then negotiations before the approval is given by the ADB Board and loan is sanctioned.

Then begins the project implementation and periodical project evaluation.

The second issue taken up on Tuesday was the problems confronted in implementation of the project focussing on the factors that delay the launching of work. These are due to delays in setting up of project implementation office, in appointment of key project staff, recruitment of consultants, procurements and discrepancies between loan agreement, project cost and provisional costing.

The coordinators explained the ADB guidelines pertaining to procurement of material and goods and services for the implementation of the project.

Substantial time was consumed in discussing effective use of the consultants who are from the same country where ADB’s financial assistance has been extended and from other parts of the world.

“Not more than two from the same country,” stressed one of the coordinators in the workshop.

The Wednesday’s session of the Workshop will be devoted to major issues in financial management that involves disbursement and ADB’s guidelines. The concluding session will focus on auditing of the ADB projects.