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Evaluation Bill will enable scrutiny of new and current projects: Mayantha
The Government will present a bill in Parliament to subject future projects to careful analysis and evaluation before they are begun, a government parliamentarian said yesterday.
Kandy District United National Party MP Mayantha Dissanayake, member of the Committee on Public Finance, told the Sunday Times the Evaluation Bill would give legal effect to the Government’s evaluation policy, in terms of which even existing projects would also come under a process called “post-evaluation”.
“Evaluation in general helps the Government estimate the returns an investment project brings, before we commit to anything,” he said. “Post-evaluation helps us learn which of our existing projects are viable and which aren’t, and if anything must be done for those that aren’t.”
Mr. Dissanayake said it was important to bring this culture into the country as a whole, and a bill in parliament was a move in the right direction.
“Sadly, at present, this initiative is backed by United National Front (UNF) parliamentarians. Only a few opposition MPs responded with enthusiasm. Most of them didn’t even turn up for the meetings we had,” the MP said, adding that an important bill such as this should receive bipartisan support.
He said it was too early for him to say whether a fair evaluation would be done for certain projects undertaken by the President and the Prime Minister. “Our only hope is to have this bill passed in parliament, so that everyone would be bound by it.”
The draft was presented to the Cabinet two weeks ago and the Government hopes to have this passed before a three-day international forum called EvalColombo 2018 was inaugurated in Colombo on September 17. More than 100 parliamentarians and representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank, and USAID are expected to attend the forum which will be declared open by the Prime Minister at a Temple Trees ceremony.
Meanwhile, Tourism Ministry Secretary V. Sivagnanasothy told a media workshop that with the Government taking evaluation under its wing, there would be more transparency in projects and more cooperation from politicians of all hues.
“Up until now project evaluations were carried out by donors, and they mostly looked at the financial side only,” Mr. Sivagnanasothy said. “Our plan is to have an independent team. Initially, many proposed that the process should be headed by the Auditor General, but we decided against this as we wanted to look beyond just the financial viability.”
He said a project would be scrutinised for its environmental impact, gender balance, the developer’s organisational capacity and the general sustainability, among other matters.