The government has halted the process of disbursing climate change adaptation fund to non-governmental organisations following allegations of nepotism in selecting the NGOs, a junior minister said.
Questions were also raised by the development actors about efficiency of many of the 53 organisations selected by the trustee board of the Climate Change Trust Fund.
“We will further assess the capacity of the organisations nominated for spending the fund for adaptation against the global warming fallout,” State Minister for Environment and Forest Hasan Mahmud told daily sun on Wednesday.
Different wings of the government machinery, including intelligence agencies, were asked to look into the matter at the grassroots-level and report back to the ministry within the shortest possible time, the state minister said.
The fund disbursement will begin only after the reports are reviewed, he added.
Around Tk 2.10 million will be disbursed among the selected NGOs for adaptation.
Earlier, the development workers and climate change activists blamed the capacity of the approved NGOs who will implement different projects.
Rezaul Karim Chow-dhury, executive director of EquityBD welcomed the government’s decision as they have serious concern over the capacity of the selected NGOs and disbursement process of the fund.
He also urged to the government to settle the annual CCTF review procedure with all the related institutions including civil society members.
The government of Bangladesh has established a Tk. 14 billion Climate Change Trust Fund (CCTF) from its own funding, which will focus mainly on adaptation, according to Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan 2009.
Of the total amount, 66 percent would be used for implementing projects and the rest 34 percent would be used indirectly as fixed deposit in order to manage the procedure from the interest accrued.
But till date it has approved in principal only around Tk. 5.1 billion to execute different projects for mitigation, adaptation and other climate change related issues.
Of the total amount of Tk. 5.1 billion, Tk 4.88 billion are being spent by government itself and the remaining Tk 2.1 million will be spent by 53 NGOs.
According to the procedure of CCTF fund management, Tk. 4.76 billion has deposited in bank for creating another fund to deal with climate change and the rest of the fund will be allocated within this fiscal year for different government and NGO projects, the minister said.
He also said that govern-ment has a little intention to allocate CCTF fund to the non-govern-mental organis-ations as they have a common tendency to misuse the funds.
The trustee board of CCTF approved primarily only Tk. 2.1 million which is 1.2 percent of the total fund as the government wants to implement the development projects effectively which will help the country meet the adverse effects of climate change, he added.
News Source: The Daily Sun