‘Finance’ finishes preparing new mechanism

Bid to follow up execution of studies assigned to WB team

KUWAIT CITY, April 13: Ministry of Finance has finished preparing a new mechanism for following up execution of the studies assigned to the World Bank team by government authorities in Kuwait, reports Al-Qabas daily quoting informed sources.

They stressed the need for this mechanism especially after the officials of the World Bank affirmed that many studies were still pending since the concerned authorities were not following up or doing the needful to guarantee consistent success. They urged the ministry to fix a new mechanism to ensure sustainability of the studies and maximize its benefits.

This will be done in a way that the ministry will be serving as the supervisory organ to monitor and execute agreements with the World Bank over different issues demanded by various government agencies.

The sources indicated that the World Bank has agreed with the Ministry of Finance regarding the need for beneficiary agencies, before carrying out studies and signing agreements, to reach an agreement with the ministry concerning framework of the document containing necessary relevant feasibility study. This should include fiscal cost, duration and other relevant conditions.

According to a recent statistic, the World Bank is currently carrying out nine studies for various government agencies in Kuwait at a total cost of $62 million. It revealed that the study on updating the higher education in Kuwait (phase two) is the costliest of them with $35.2 million and the World Bank will complete it in August 2019.