Small and Medium Enterprise Sector Development Program

Compliance with the repor and recommendation of the president (RRP) recruitments. The requirements for goods and services as incorporated in the RRP and loan agreement need to be strictly followed while preparing the technical assistance project proposal (TPP) to ensure smooth TA implementation. Due to misunderstandings by the executing agency, the TPP prepared by the government was not able to meet the requirements; causing two problems. The first problem relates to the recruitment of consultants whose expertise did not match as mentioned in the RRP e.g., recruitment of two domestic consultants for rationalization of government assistance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) when the RRP specified that two international experts namely restructuring expert and SME strategic development specialist, were needed for that purpose. The selection of two domestic consultants instead probably compromised the quality of output and caused considerable delay in processing the rationalization measures for Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) and Small and Cottage Industries Training Institute (SCITI). The second problem relates to the need for making amendments to the TPP that involved time-consuming procedures and caused delays in the recruitment of the needed consultants. All these led to an overall delay of about 2.5 years in closing the TA and program loans, thus caused delay in releasing the second tranche of the program loan.