ISLAMABAD, Feb 20: The World Bank has pledged to approve a three-year $3 billion country assistance strategy for Pakistan on March 11 and release $300 million under the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper in April.

The assurance was given during a meeting held between a delegation of the World Bank led by its Vice-President for South Asia Praful C. Patel and President Gen Pervez Musharraf here on Friday. The seven-member delegation briefed the president on continuing power sector losses.

Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz told Dawn later that the World Bank's soft-term funding to the country would increase under the International Development Assistance. He said the line losses were a cause of concern for both the government and the bank because one per cent line loss translated into Rs2.4 billion.

He said the delegation was critical of the pace of corporatization of the power sector which had taken place "in letter but not in spirit". He said the delegation included a former energy minister of Chile, who is known as a power sector reformer.

The bank team insisted that people should be employed on a full-time basis to carry out reforms in Wapda, maintaining that senior officials were doing multiple jobs and thus compromising quality and interests.

Wapda chairman Tariq Hameed informed the meeting that his department needed investment worth Rs14 billion for technical rehabilitation of its system. He said the investment, if provided early by the bank, could help reduce the losses immediately.

The vice-president said Wapda should prove its capacity for funds utilization and present its requirements which would be placed before the executive board for approval.

He said if satisfied with the implementation of the current Rs1.4 annual billion investment programme by Wapda through its own resources, the bank was ready to provide amount for distribution and technical system improvement.