rupashibangla Desk:
Finance Minister AMA Muhith is leaving Dhaka for Japan on Tuesday on a seven-day visit to join the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB).
He will discuss strategy to implement the Padma bridge project with the top brass of the global lender and the co-financers of the project, he told bdnews24.com on Monday.
“The top officials of the four financers of the Padma bridge project will be there at the IMF-WB Annual Meetings. I will obviously meet them and the Padma bridge issue will be discussed,” he said.
The co-financers are Asian Development Bank (ADB), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
“We (government) want that the investigation into the alleged corruption in the project and its implementation are conducted simultaneously. I’ll discuss this with the financers. I hope they will agree,” the Finance Minister said.
“The World Bank has returned to the project. The other three organisations have welcomed the move and asked to start work quickly. Now we’ll have to fix the strategy to implement the project. And we are heading for this. I hope we’ll finish the work soon.”
Muhith said the discussions with the WB officials will be on only the Padma bridge. “The discussion will start from the point it had stopped.”
“It has already too late. I don’t want any more delay. The World Bank thinks so,” he said.
The government wants to start constructing the bridge within April or May after finishing investigation and tender within February, he said. “What happened in September has finished in September. There will be no discussion on it,” he added.
Muhith said he will not have any formal meeting with World Bank President Jim Yong Kim. “But we’ll of course discuss the strategy to implement the Padma bridge project if I meet with him,” he said.
Senior Information Officer of the Ministry Shahedur Rahman told bdnews24.com that Muhith will leave at 1:30pm on Tuesday and return on Oct 16.
Muhith will also meet his counterparts from other countries.
upload 8oct. newsroom
