Record low ADP implement in 2025

UNB :

The Planning Ministry, entrusted with steering Bangladesh’s development agenda, ends 2025 under mounting criticism over its persistent failure to accelerate public project implementation, culminating in what officials privately describe as a record-low implementation pace under the Annual Development Programme (ADP).

Despite repeated assurances, reform pledges and frequent high-level review meetings, the ministry closed the year with chronic delays, persistent underspending and stalled flagship projects—raising serious questions about institutional capacity, coordination failures and accountability in public investment management.

According to official data from the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), overall ADP implementation during the first eleven months of FY2024–25 remained below 55 percent, marking the slowest pace recorded in more than a decade. Historically, implementation crosses 65–70 percent by this stage of the fiscal year.

Several key ministries and divisions under the Planning Ministry’s oversight recorded implementation rates below 50 percent, even as the fiscal year entered its final quarter—signalling deep-rooted structural weaknesses rather than temporary execution delays.

Traditionally, project execution accelerates in the second half of the fiscal year. However, 2025 defied this pattern. Monthly expenditure trends remained sluggish, and the customary year-end spending surge failed to materialise, reflecting weaknesses in project readiness, procurement planning and managerial oversight.

Senior officials acknowledge that the slowdown is not primarily due to funding constraints, but rather a failure of planning discipline, procurement preparedness and inter-ministerial coordination.

Throughout the year, the Planning Ministry convened multiple ADP review meetings, issued warnings to slow-moving project directors (PDs), and repeatedly instructed executing agencies to “expedite implementation.” Yet these directives yielded limited results.

Experts argue that the ministry relied excessively on routine monitoring and verbal instructions, without enforcing penalties for non-performance or replacing underperforming project leadership.

As a result, the same projects continued to feature month after month on IMED’s list of slow-moving schemes.

“The problem is not lack of diagnosis; it’s lack of action,” said a former planning secretary. “Everyone knows which projects are stuck and why, but decisive corrective steps are rarely taken.”

Even large, high-profile development projects failed to escape delays. Land acquisition bottlenecks, design changes, contractor inefficiencies and delays in foreign loan disbursement continued to plague mega projects—many of which have already undergone multiple cost and time revisions.

During 2025, the Planning Ministry approved numerous project revisions, extending completion deadlines and inflating costs.

Critics argue that such revisions have increasingly become routine damage control rather than exceptional responses to unforeseen circumstances.

Economists warn that repeated revisions undermine fiscal discipline and erode confidence in public investment efficiency—particularly at a time when Bangladesh faces constrained fiscal space, rising debt servicing obligations and pressure on foreign exchange reserves.

The weak implementation record comes at a sensitive macroeconomic moment. With inflationary pressures, subdued private investment and external financing constraints, effective public investment was expected to play a stabilising role in sustaining growth and employment.

Instead, underspending on development projects limited the government’s ability to stimulate economic activity, create jobs and improve service delivery—especially in rural and semi-urban areas.

Ironically, the Planning Ministry continues to approve increasingly ambitious ADP sizes each year, despite a widening gap between allocation and execution capacity. The FY2024–25 ADP exceeded Tk 2.6 trillion, yet historical trends suggest actual utilisation rarely matches planned outlays.

Policy analysts argue that the ministry has prioritised headline allocation figures over realistic, implementable planning.

Feasibility studies are often rushed, project readiness remains weak at the approval stage, and procurement plans are inadequately prepared—making delays almost inevitable once implementation begins.

“The Planning Ministry plans as if everything will go right,” said a former IMED official. “But governance realities are ignored, and the same mistakes are repeated year after year.”

At the core of the implementation crisis lies a chronic lack of accountability. Many project directors handle multiple projects simultaneously and face little consequence for delays or cost overruns. Transfers, promotions and postings rarely reflect project performance.

In some cases, PDs remained in charge despite spending less than 30 percent of allocations halfway through the fiscal year.

Although the Planning Ministry has long discussed professionalising project management and creating a dedicated project management cadre, 2025 passed without any concrete reform in this direction.

IMED, the monitoring arm of the Planning Ministry, consistently flagged procurement delays, coordination failures and implementation risks in its monthly reports.

However, these warnings largely remained diagnostic, as IMED lacks enforcement authority and its recommendations are often ignored by executing agencies.

Beyond bureaucratic inefficiencies, analysts warn that persistent development delays carry tangible social and political costs. Incomplete roads, delayed hospitals, unfinished schools and stalled water projects directly affect citizens—particularly outside major urban centres.

Public frustration has grown as promised timelines repeatedly shift, reinforcing perceptions that development planning remains disconnected from ground realities.

As 2025 draws to a close, the Planning Ministry confronts an uncomfortable reality: record-low implementation rates, stalled reforms and a widening gap between planning ambition and execution capacity.

Without structural changes—ranging from realistic ADP sizing and rigorous project screening to enforceable accountability and professional project management—the cycle of delay and underspending is likely to persist.

For a ministry entrusted with shaping Bangladesh’s development trajectory, 2025 will be remembered less for visionary planning and more as a year marked by missed opportunities, managerial inertia and systemic failure to deliver.