Kathmandu, August 17 :

Nepal has signed foreign aid agreements with different countries amounting to over Rs 93 billion on ‘different projects’ starting from 2002 to 2005 that are yet to be completed.

The foreign aid agreements signed in 2002 for some projects still exist and some aid agreements will prevail till 2012, according to the ministry of finance.

Most aid agreements comprises of loans, grants and technical assistance are on women and children’s rights, health sector, optical fibre cable network, governance reform and income generating programmes, rural community infrastructure development and food for education, road network development, secondary education improvement, power development, poverty alleviation and financial sector reform.

Major donors for huge aid and grants for a long term are UNICEF, India, USA, World Food Programme (WFP), Asian Development Bank (ADB),

World Bank (WB), Denmark, European Union, United Kingdom, Finland, Japan and Germany, according to a ministry of finance report.

Nepal has an agreement with UNDP for Rs 0.91 billion to run Western Terai Landscape Complex project which was signed on August 31, 2005. It runs till August 2012, despite it comprising of small grants compared to other aid accords.

Nepal government has signed an agreement with Asian Development Bank (ADB) amounting to over Rs 1.41 billion as loan agreement to improve irrigation system in the country to increase agricultural production. It will stay in operation till March 31, 2012.

Germany has inked an agreement with Nepal on January 31, 2006 promising to give a grant of Rs 1.08 billion for Middle Marshyangdi Hydropower Project by December 2007, as per the ministry’s report.

To reform the country’s fragile financial sector, largely dominated by two banks, namely Nepal Bank Ltd (NBL) and Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB), Nepal government has agreed to take loans of Rs 4.97 billion from World Bank on June 10, 2004 which runs until September 30, 2009.

Similarly, World Bank has given a loan of Rs 3.73 billion to Nepal on July 15, 2004 under Education for All project that runs till July 15, 2009, in order to improve education system in public sector schools.

While, big borrowers are not repaying their loans to banks, the Nepali government is spending billions of rupees in the name of reforms by taking loans to recover bad-loans of banks.

From both these routes, the country is losing billions of rupees, due primarily to bad governance, says a ministry official, requesting anonymity.

Now a government move is likely to bring some of the big defaulters to book.