Avoid unnecessary foreign trips: Planning minister
MA Mannan said not much could be expected from project directors if they are not present at their workstations
Planning Minister MA Mannan on Monday asked government officials to refrain from taking unnecessary foreign trips.
"People know from the media what we do in the name of a foreign trip," he said.
The minister said this at a workshop titled Project Management Information System (PMIS), organised by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) at the Bangladesh Institute of Management in Dhanmondi, Dhaka.
The IMED provides regular training to project directors under the PMIS programme.
"Our country has changed a lot and we are under the radar of people who always monitor us," the minister said.
Recently, 24 officers submitted a proposal to go abroad for a training on pond and canal excavation. However, in the revised proposal, names of 100 officers have been included, raising the trip cost by five times to Tk7.5 crore from the previous Tk1.44 crore.
Regarding effective monitoring of projects, the minister said not much could be expected from the project directors if they are not present at their workstations.
"Unfortunately, most of the project directors are involved in travelling."
However, Mannan recognised that the project directors, who carry out many responsibilities, have to come to Dhaka for many businesses, including to receive the allocated fund.
Expressing his disappointment regarding purchases in a project, the minister said we have to be more careful.
More than 30 project directors were supposed to be present at the IMED workshop, however, only a few attended. The rest sent their subordinates, said Mannan.
The Project Management Information System should be open for all so that people know how far a project has progressed regardless of wherever they are, the minister opined.
"There is nothing to hide here. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wants people to know about these types of information."