News
Special unit to monitor 260 mega development projects
View(s):By Damith Wickramasekara
A special supervisory unit under a Deputy Treasury Secretary is to be appointed to review the progress of 260 mega-scale development projects with a combined investment of Rs. 5.8 trillion, Treasury sources said. The special unit, which will be supported by government agencies, including the Auditor General’s Department, will conduct weekly progress reviews of the projects, many of which have been impacted by the country’s economic crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 125 if these projects are financed through foreign sources. The earliest of the projects date from 2012 and should be completed before 2030. Ten of the projects have been initiated this year.
The decision to set up a special unit comes after a survey conducted by government agencies including the Ministry of Finance revealed that though 61 of the 260 projects were to be completed during the first half of this year, 46 of them had failed to generate results as expected.
Moreover, only 15 of the projects have been completed while 15 others are being implemented successfully. From a total of 134 projects 59 have been identified as those which “need special attention” and 75 “at critical status”. Implementation of 14 projects have so far been temporarily suspended.
While a procedure had been adopted this year for allocating funds on a quarterly basis to ensure the optimum utilisation of funds for the projects, the progress was impeded due to a number of issues including restrictions on imports, scarcity of raw material, the fuel crisis, power cuts and difficulties in contract management due to inflation and the shortage of foreign exchange, the Treasury sources noted.
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