Gambia’s Permanent Secretary for Finance and Economic Af fairs, Mot Secka, has disclosed that despite the welcoming signals from the African Development Bank (AfDB), the performance rate in the implementation of the current bank’s portfolio has been below expectation.
Secka said this at the opening of the ADB project implementation workshop here Wednesday, saying the factor responsible for the unsatisfactory disbursement rate was the inflexibility and inadequate knowledge of the bank’s rules and regulations.
According to him, the project implementation unit officials are ill-prepared to effectively and efficiently fund projects on a timely basis.
These factors, he said, included weak human and technical capacity at the project implementation level, which affect the absorptive capacity to utilise fund rapid turn over, difficulty in comprehending bank’s rules and regulations, delay in turning over management reports, failure to audit projects and report on time.
According to him, “this has lead to sub-optimal achievement of the ADB projects development objectives”.
He emphasised that until all these factors causing low performance were addresse d, there would be a slowdown in achieving the national socio-economic programme s as well as attracting additional funding from the bank and other development pa r tners.
Secka also said analysts believe that the continued low performance of projects may lead to reduction in the performance rating of the country’s portfolio of projects, depending on the amount and the projects’ portfolio.
