New Zealand-based consultant Maunsell Aecom, tasked with taking the Padma Bridge project forward, has stopped work on the bridge because the government has failed to pay its due instalment.
The $25.858m instalment has not been paid because of various complications in the country’s banking system including an acute shortage of dollars, say government sources.
Because of the delay in payment, the consultant has halted the construction of the connecting road to the bridge.
A senior official of the communications ministry has expressed doubts that the construction of the controversial development project, the biggest ever in the country’s history, will begin within the tenure of the current government.
Constructing a bridge over River Padma and connecting the southwestern regions with the rest of the country by road was one of the key election pledges of the ruling Awami League-led grand alliance government.
In April, the government appointed Maunsell Aecom to look after seven issues of the project including designing the main bridge; river training; constructing the Jajira point approach road and the service areas; construction, supervision, management and supporting consultants; and conducting a study on the variation of expenditures.
The consultant recently sent a letter to the government’s Bridges Division expressing its dissatisfaction over the matter.
The Bridges Division then sent a letter to the Bangladesh Bank informing it that Agrani Bank, tasked with paying a part of the instalment, could not complete the payment because it did not have enough foreign currency.
The central bank authorities asked the Green Road branch of Agrani Bank to solve matter as soon as possible, sources from the finance ministry said.
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Obaidul Quader said there was no update on the construction of the bridge.
When asked about Maunsell’s decision to halt construction, the minister said he could not comment on it because the matter was being taken care of by the Bridges Division.
Shafiqul Islam, director of the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, said they had recently held a meeting with the Bank and Financial Institutions Division of the finance ministry, where they discussed ways to pay the instalment in full.
The matter surfaced during an inter-ministerial meeting held at the finance ministry last week.
In the meeting, representatives of the central bank claimed that it had enough foreign currency to solve the problem.
They said the Bangladesh Bank authority had already opened a Foreign Currency Account with Agrani Bank where it deposited $150m.
Representatives of the Bridges Division said in the meeting that they needed about $500m to be able to start the construction of the main bridge this year.
Meanwhile, the Finance Division of the Ministry of Finance has reportedly assured the Bridges Division that it has set aside Tk68.52bn ($806.86m) for the bridge in the budget for the current fiscal year.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said in the past in parliament that the government would open a separate foreign currency account of $1.2-1.4bn with the central bank for bearing the foreign exchange liabilities of the project.
The government decided to finance the bridge from local funds after the World Bank pulled out its financing commitments over allegations of corruption and conspiracies in the project.
