World Bank insists Bangladesh on receiving its aid

The World Bank wants Bangladesh to receive an assistance it is offering for rehabilitation of Rohingyas, amid lukewarm response from the authorities concerned due to the mixed nature of the aid.

WB President Jim Yong Kim wrote to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina early this month, requesting her to accept the assistance in terms of both loans and grants, officials said Wednesday.

He said the bank was ready to provide any types of supports for the Rohingya people, displaced from their home country Myanmar.

The government agencies responsible for the Rohingya rehabilitation expressed their reservations about the proposed assistance recently when a visiting WB mission came to Bangladesh for exploring necessary assistance for the displaced Myanmar citizens.

Officials said a country might get a maximum of $400 million from the bank's refugee window -- one-sixth of which as the regular soft loan allocation and the remaining portion from the refugee window. Half of the amount will be grant and the rest half as loan.

They said the ministries and agencies concerned were reluctant to accept 50 per cent loan and wanted it to be grant money.

Besides, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) has a reservation against financial support from any of the development partners as it considered the support would encourage the Rohingyas to stay in Bangladesh permanently, said the officials.

The private sector organisations like Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) also expressed deep concern over the WB's loan proposal.

An official at the Economic Relations Division (ERD) said that they were going slow with the assistance proposal as the implementing agencies of the relevant projects were reluctant to receive the funds.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister AMA Muhith during the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund-World Bank in Washington DC in October sought support from the World Bank to meet the needs of Rohingya refugees.

A total of US$2.0 billion fund is allocated to the WB's 'Refugee fund'. Any country in need of the assistance could apply for a maximum of $400 million in loans over a three-year term.

The WB president in his letter to the PM hailed Bangladesh's efforts on the Rohingya handling and said they were closely communicating with the United Nations and its agencies working in Bangladesh for the Rohingya people.

He said the assistance would protect interests of Bangladeshis and Rohingya. It will not ensure incentives for the Rohingya to stay here permanently rather help their timely repatriation.

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