Customizing the terms of reference of auditors to project requirements and ensuring that they are properly oriented on these requirements are critical to promoting project compliance with ADB financial management procedures. There were gaps in complying with the financial management conditions of the loan agreement, including the need to timely submit audit reports and auditor’s management letters and opinions.
Timely and appropriate changes in scope and reallocation of loan and grant proceeds responding to actual project needs emerging from implementation can help utilize available loan and grant resources in a more targeted and efficient manner to facilitate more activities and deliver more outputs. For example, responding to the government’s request relating to E35 contributed directly to developing an efficient and safer transport corridor between Islamabad, Faisalabad, and Multan for more connectivity between the various parts of the country.
Providing EAs proactive guidance and close support in financial management from project start to finish will ensure timely and quality compliance. HPPTCL, executing its first ADB loan, faced initial challenges in meeting financial management-related requirements. However, these challenges were overcome as the project progressed, resulting in improved compliance.
Timely and appropriate disclosure of ADB’s audited project financial statements enhances stakeholders' ability to meaningfully engage with ADB and promotes good governance. Timely disclosure of project financial performance needs to be ensured in future projects.
ADB needs to emphasize the recruitment of staff with adequate financial qualifications for the project management unit's (PMU) finance function. Under this program, annual project financial statements (APFSs) and audited entity financial statements were submitted late to ADB for various reasons, including project staff lacking financial management skills and expertise. In several instances, disclaimers of opinion on APFSs and audit qualification reports were issued.
Early and regular involvement of the financial management staff and collaboration with other development partners in the PMGSY program is necessary to better design the management arrangements early in the project cycle. Significant financial management issues throughout the life of the projects would have been prevented by such a measure.
A consolidated annual project financial statement ((APFS) needs to be required from projects with more than one component, and this should be included in the project administration manual and monitored closely for compliance. Submission of the consolidated APFSs for the first 2 fiscal years was delayed because of time lag in consolidating the reports on the two components.
It may be necessary for the Government of India to consider directly releasing project funds to executing agencies to avoid delayed reimbursement of project expenses that leads to late payment for example of contractors, which affected the Implementation of all projects under this program.
Better coordination and the Preparation of a consolidated project financial statement for projects being implemented by multiple agencies will facilitate the timely submission of annual project financial statements (APFSs) which in turn will help avoid delays in loan disbursements. In this program, the Preparation by the two EAs of separate annual project financial statements, both audited by an external auditor, created an unnecessary administrative overload for ADB.
The cost categories required to be reported in the audited program financial statements (APFS) need to align with the categorization at appraisal so as not to cause problems in reporting. PLN faced difficulty in estimating the financing charges during implementation at appraisal stage. In addition, PLN raised a concern on the disclosure provision regarding APFS due to confidentiality requirements. The cost categories reported in the APFS were not aligned with the categorization used at appraisal, due to which changes to reporting formats were needed.