Muhith rules out Chinese funding

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has described as 'unacceptable’ an offer by a Chinese company to invest $ 2.4 billion for the Padma rail-road bridge, two days after his cabinet colleague Obaidul Quader said the offer was being evaluated.

The 6.15 kms rail-road bridge over the mighty Padma is Bangladesh's biggest ever infrastructure project and Muhith insists it will be built with "our own resources".

“We need to waive off global tendering if we accept the Chinese offer or any such offer , but doing the project with a global tender is ‘basic’ for Bangladesh," said Muhith.

“I think its (global tendering) is extremely important not for technology only, but also because the project has been accused of corruption...and to avoid further allegations its essential we do it through a global tender”.

Bangladesh has already floated the global tender for the bridge after it withdrew the World Bank funding request following a long impasse over graft allegations.

The minister said he would "take it to appropriate quarter before giving final decision”.

Muhith spoke to journalists after meeting Russian ambassador Alexander Mikolaev and Indian High Commisisoner Pankaj Saran at his office.

Muhith said the Russia also offered ‘general contractor with some credit’ for the Padma Bridge that he said cannot be accepted for the similar reason.

Communication Minister Obaidul Quader on Tuesday told journalists that the Chinese state-owned firm Poly Corporation wants to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh to seal the Padma bridge deal.

Quader says the Chinese firm has proposed to fund and built the bridge on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.

The communication minister also said that “China’s proposal may be better than the one of the World Bank.”

The World Bank was supposed to give a $1.2 billion for the $2.9 billion project. The ADB and JICA were to put in $ 1 billion between themselves.

But Bangladesh government in January this year withdrew its funding request to the global lender after a tug-of-war over graft allegations involving ministers and government officials.

That was followed by Chinese and Malaysian proposals to fund and built the huge bridge but the Sheikh Hasina government put all speculation to rest by announcing it will fund the project with its own resources.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith allocated TK 68.52 billion ($ 0.88 billion) for the project in the 2013-14 national budget while a Tk 91 billion global tender was floated for the construction of the bridge's mainframe.