Friday Nov 15, 2024
Friday Nov 15, 2024
Thursday, 16 March 2017 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Cabinet yesterday gave approval to establish a Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Project Office to coordinate $ 700 million worth of investment over the next five years to Sri Lanka.
The funds are to be used for priority areas in policy stability, access to land and transport that have been identified as impediments for development by the MCC, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said in the Cabinet paper.
However, Sri Lanka has to work to prepare a Compact program, which will take at least three years, outlining the development projects it wanted funds for, the Cabinet paper noted. If the Government does not meet exacting anti-corruption and democracy standards the country can be downgraded to a Threshold Program with fewer funds available to it or dropped by the MCC altogether.
In addition to setting up the MCC office and recruiting staff for it, the Government will also spend Rs. 58 million for establishing and maintaining the office for 2017 with the same amount to be included in Budget 2018 as a separate project.
The MCC is an independent agency separated from the State Department and working to reduce global poverty though economic growth. It provides time-limited grants and assistance to developing countries that meet rigorous standards for good governance from fighting corruption to respecting democratic rights.
“Once a country is selected for an MCC programme, it has to be reselected annually by the MCC board until the Compact is signed. Therefore a country has to pass the scorecard annually and improve the scorecard indicators on an incremental basis. Failure to pass the scorecard and its hurdles like the control of corruption and democratic rights in a particular year can lead to the country not being selected and the MCC could end the partnership, which happened to Sri Lanka in 2005 or the country being downgraded to a Threshold Programme,” the Cabinet paper said.
