Inadequate local counterpart funds obstruct the payment of necessary land acquisition and resettlement costs, resulting in slow implementation and delays, particularly during the initial stage of project implementation.
The results-based lending (RBL) modality provides flexibility to adjust targets adversely affected by unforessen adverse events such as COVID-19. During 2020–2022, the COVID-19 pandemic affected the demand for electricity, lowering the State Electricity Company's (PLN) revenues and creating uncertainty in its investment plans. Sourcing equity financing and implementing ongoing projects within PLN became difficult under such conditions and adjustments were needed in scope and time targets of ongoing works.
The use of IT has become part and parcel of fiscal decentralization efforts. Before the program, most agencies were hesitant to invest in IT infrastructure and resorted to grants from development partners. The program encouraged the government to appreciate the importance of sustaining the systems from the local governments' own budgets, greatly reducing the risk that the systems would not be sustained.
When the minimum amount of disbursement needs to be established for some administrative reasons from ADB's co-financiers, it is beneficial to set it at the lowest possible level to enable financiers to respond flexibly to the disbursement needs on the ground. The Agence Française de Développement (AFD) required the minimum amount of $5 million to process disbursements, except for the first disbursement of $300,000, while the ADB did not impose such a threshold.
ADB close mentoring and guidance are crucial to ensuring quality financial reports and well functioning financial systems. During the first reporting year of the project, the implementing agency had difficulty complying with the annual financial reporting requirements. Through ADB's close mentoring and guidance, the reports gradually improved, from the beginning of fiscal year 2019 up to 2021, and the auditors issued clean or unqualified opinions.
Following ADB Procurement Guidelines throughout will avoid any issues over unfamiliarity with or misunderstanding of the conditions. Although the use of the implementing agency's works and procurement policy and procedures was approved with conditions for smaller contracts, the implementing agency's decision to follow ADB's guidelines eased implementation and minimized procurement issues.
Reduced counterpart funding and increased use of loan proceeds will facilitate timely implementation and project closure. This project was designed with substantial counterpart funding from governments. While demonstrating strong ownership, this affected implementation as the governments were unable to disburse the budget on time. Besides reducing the requirement for counterpart funding, sufficient documentation and incorporation of counterpart fund releases in the audited annual financial statements can help facilitate the financial closing of future projects.
The periodic maintenance payment rates may be standardized for future use. This project incorporated maintenance payments for the first year, allocated at prefixed rates, and with provision for an annual increase in subsequent years. Comparing the periodic maintenance payments made to the contractors with the actual expenditure incurred by the contractors, there is basis for standardizing periodic maintenance payment rates.
Corporatized public enterprises operating on a cost-recovery basis need government funding support for infrastructure improvements. Provision of government counterpart funding should have been a condition for grant effectiveness. Instead, the executing agency, the Papua New Guinea Power Limited (PPL), partially made funds available for civil works. PPL, as a corporatized enterprise, is mandated to operate on a cost-recovery basis and did not have sufficient funding allocation.
Ensuring the sustainability of project benefits would require serious efforts from the component implementation units (CIUs) to raise funds from various sources. Governments have allocated annual budgets for CIUs to continue post-project operations. But financial sustainability is still a concern, as government allocations are sufficient to cover only routine facility maintenance and supplies and not surveillance, animal and pest outbreak responses, and repair of critical laboratory equipment.