RAWALPINDI, Feb 22: The Asian Development Bank, in a new report, says Pakistan has long delays in implementation of ADB-assisted projects and programme as well as average delays in loan closings.

The ADB picked up five projects each to carry out case studies of ongoing Asian Development Fund operations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal Laos and Vietnam under a special evaluation study in these countries. The projects were selected based on older operations covering different sectors mainly agriculture and natural resources, social sectors, transport and energy.

Pakistan has had by far the longest average delays in loan closings. Against an average disbursement ratio in 2006 of 19 per cent for the entire ADF loan portfolio, case study countries did not do very well, and Pakistan averaged at 17 per cent. When excluding the usually faster disbursing programme loans, then the performance of the four larger case study countries is again slightly below average, showing Pakistan at 14 per cent, the report says.

Reproductive health project was one of the five projects for which ADB approved $36 million on December 20, 2001 but was signed on March 20, 2003 and the loan became effective on February 24, 2004 for which the processing of PC-I by the Planning Commission took eight months. There had been several discussions to cancel the project loan on the basis of slow progress.

Bank’s study team provisionally rates the project as likely to be unsuccessful. The stated end date of the project is June 2008. The team’s rating was based on poor project design and implementation arrangements, involving a relatively new ministry with little on the ground capacity to implement the project activities; social reluctance to promote reproductive health services.

The Agricultural Sector Programme Loan-II was approved by ADB on December 13, 2001. It was signed on April 1, 2002 and became effective on September 24 the same year. The programme loan included three loans: $123 million from ADF resources, $225 million from OCR and $2 million as technical assistance loan from ADF resources.

As a result of this loan programme, Pakistan’s agriculture sector is more liberalised with reduced government interference. Steps have been taken to free the sugar sub-sector from distortions but import duties on sugar still exist.

The report says the provincial governments initially perceived the programme design to be too complex with too many policy requirements. They viewed it as federally-driven. However, this perception changed as a result of extensive consultations with the provinces.

Livestock and horticultural development and strengthened research and extension services figured prominently in the list of projects. Many of these projects were considered innovative and providing technology-based infrastructure. However, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock failed to collect baseline data at the start of the programme.

Access to justice programme was the third case picked up by ADB for the study. The programme relied on three loans: ADF loan of $243.2 million, an ADF loan of $86.8 million and ADF technical assistance loan of $20 million. The ADB also funded six advisory technical assistances from 1997 to 2004, worth $6.9 million. The programme was set to close on June 30, 2005 but was extended three times and the first two loans were closed on September 30, 2007. The TA loan is expected to close in June 2008. Programme loan utilisation was about 73 per cent while that of the TA loan stood at only 9 per cent in September 2007.

The ADB approved $296.2 million ordinary capital resources loan and ADF loan of $5 million for NWFP road development sector and sub-regional connectivity project in November 2004 but the project became effective after 11 months. At the end of August 2007, contracts awards and disbursements amounted to $41 million and $8.873 million, respectively.

Actual road construction only commenced on June 7, 2006 and most of the progress relates to rural roads component of the project.

The ADB study team considered that the project was likely to be only partly successful, even with its revised scope.