WB Vice President, procurement team?s visits deferred

FE Report

The visits of the Vice President of World Bank (WB) Isabel Guerrero and also the Bank's procurement team to sort out the issues about procurement modalities of the Padma Bridge project, earlier due for this current month, have been deferred.

"Isabel could not come to Dhaka this month as was planned earlier," Finance Minister A M A Muhith told reporters Thursday at his secretariat office.

He said the WB's vice president could not visit Bangladesh this month due to an urgent meeting of top-level management personnel, called by the organisation's president at the WB's headquarters.

The fresh date of her visit will be known shortly, he added.

The finance minister further said the earlier-scheduled visit of the WB procurement team is also uncertain at this stage.

"I don't know," he told reporters, when he was asked whether the team would arrive in the current month or not.

Muhith and top officials of the Economic Relations Division (ERD) had earlier said the procurement team would visit the country in late November.

Earlier, the Washington-based lender announced that it would send two separate teams to discuss the Padma Bridge project with the government officials in Dhaka.

One of the teams would oversee the modus operandi of investigations by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) into the allegations of graft in the bidding process prior to appointment of consultant for the project and the other would set its procurement modalities, according to an earlier announcement.

Source: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/index.php?ref=MjBfMTFfMTZfMTJfMV8xXzE1MDE0Mg==

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