Thirty-Five Ministries Sign APAs With Government

The agreements were inked between the Cabinet Division and the concerned ministries and divisions in the cabinet room of Bangladesh Secretariat prior to the weekly cabinet meeting in presence of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The cabinet secretary, on behalf of the Prime Minister, and the concerned secretaries, on behalf of their ministers, signed the agreements. Under the agreements, the ministries at the beginning of the fiscal year would ascertain vision, mission and strategic goals in consistence with the development priorities of the government, long-term perspective plan, five-year plan and allocation and business and budgetary allocation of the ministries.

Briefing reporters after the cabinet meeting, Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan said so far 45 ministries and divisions signed the agreements with the Cabinet Division for evaluating the performance of the officials on an annual basis.

Under the agreements, the government would monitor the execution of the development projects, programmes and activities of the ministries and give guidelines, if necessary, for hundred percent implementation of the plans.

In the first phase, ten ministries and divisions came under such Annual Performance Agreement (APA) with the government on February 2, 2015. Ministry of Religious Affairs, Finance Division, Statistics and Information Management Division would come under APA later.

The cabinet today approved the draft of the "Youth Welfare Fund Act- 2015" updating the existing ordinance to provide financial support to the registered youth organizations to conduct cultural and sports activities. The new law is a revised version of the existing Youth Welfare Fund Ordinance-1985, which was passed during the military regime of HM Ershad.

The highest court of the country in a verdict in 2010 declared the military rule illegal nullifying all laws and ordinances promulgated during the military regime. However, according to the court order, the cabinet decided to revive the essential laws along with necessary updating and translating into Bangla.

The cabinet secretary said under the law, the youth organizations would get financial support from the government to carry out activities in the areas of education, science, information technology, vocational training, art and culture and sports.

The fund will be operated under a two-tier management system. A selection committee headed by the secretary of the ministry of youth would select the qualified organization while a managing board headed by the minister in charge would give final approval.

The cabinet meeting was informed about the visit of expatriates' welfare and overseas employment minister to Saudi Arabia from January 18 to 23, 2015 and the visit of deputy minister for environment and forests to Paris from November 17 to 21, 2014 to attend 10th Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention for Protection of Ozone Layer (COP 10) and 26th meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (MOP 26).

Photo: Saiful Islam Kallol