Progress report strengthening the national statistical system of the islamic republic of afghanistan
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- 3. SRF PROJECT RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER ONGOING PROJECTS
- 3.1. ADB activities at CSO
2. Implementation actions.2.1. Financial issuesPresented previous reports and especially the last one indicated that the main project activities had started from the end of the second quarter of 2011 or first quarter of FY 1390. The project had planned several important actions in the budget that supposed to be started during the reporting period (it is essential to emphasize that the first year budgeting was prepared on the bases of the ANSP and SRF project appraisal document that indicated the beginning of twinning arrangement after six months of project effectiveness date, i.e. by end of September 2011). Although SRF financial activities had been started at the end of May it managed to set up good relationship with the MoF and organized the fund request in planned time and it really appreciates MoF help and support on this matter. SRF had envisaged to arrange a joint CSO and MoF training and experience exchange with the neighboring countries and sent the financial staff of both organization to SA (TAJSTAT) of Tajikistan. According to the MoF information this was the first experience of joint action that happened with MoF although it is controlling over 50 projects only with WB and this experience needs also to be shared with other government institutions, which is really leading not only to capacity building at the CSO level but MoF as well. The project put all its efforts to implement the planned actions, but as the QFR and Progress report do reflect some aspects of action are out of the projects control and have a direct impact on its implementation process which will be reflected in the provided financial and procurement issues. During the reporting period the project managed to implement the following financial activities: a) Conducting of interim un-audit financial report; b) Project replenishment of designated account; c) Project's refunding of initial advance of the budget to the MoF; d) Disbursement of funds; e) WB financial management and disbursement capacity building workshop; f) Financial officer's information on training's facilitation. 2.1.1. Conducting of interim un-audit financial report. According to plan of the WB office in Kabul all projects needs to take once per quarter an interim un-audited financial visit to check the project implementation status, its financial and disbursement problems to help them to overcome any unforeseen issues during its realization and insure that the implementation process is going on as it was planned and reflected in the budget. SRF project took its interim un-audit financial report on July 27, 2011 during which the project achievements and shortfalls, accuracy of financial documentation preparation according to WB and Government rules and regulations were checked. The key purpose of conducting this review was to strengthen further the client’s project FM systems through an enhanced understanding of the various requirements/good practices in order to ensure the achievement of its objectives for improving project financial management performance and to provide acceptable assurance on the use of Bank's funds. In particular, it was geared towards sharing knowledge with clients through a highly interactive process on the specific topics to provide greater clarity. The IUFR checked the following issues: a) financial report and physical progress; b) compliance of opening bank balance with closing balance; c) variance between planned and actual costs; d) quality of the financial report; e) review of project sources and uses of funds; f) review of disbursement statement in conjunction with the Loan Department and g) review of special account system. The IUFR did not check the procurement plan and the status of its implementation. Revising the financial issues of the project during the interim un-audit financial review the following comments were reflected in the report: a) statement of Cash receipts and payments where was mentioned that "the opening balance for the current quarter is indicated as USD 700,300.16 whereas only USD 700,000 was deposited in the designated account. Furthermore, the openings balance for cumulative to date is indicated as nil, this should be the same as for the current quarter, since this is the first quarter for the project". The discrepancy had happened due to the unexpected and extraordinary support of the MoF for the project cost the amount of $30 000 as an initial advance for retroactive financing that was spent for the PICT salaries for the last quarter of 1389, and remaining amount was included in the opening balance account and increased the total amount of project opening balance by the time of receiving its own funds in the special account. 2.1.2. Project replenishment of designated account. Based on the information given above PICT needs to indicate that SRF project for the first time submitted its M16 forms with the invoices of the project expenditures for the period of both quarters of 1390 to MoF/SDU in order to replenish the project designated accounts. SRF project has got an amount of $101,915.28 for the project expenditure that has been implemented in first and partially in second quarters. 2.1.3. Project's refunding of initial advance budget to the MoF. As it was indicated in the previous project reports the selection of PICT was finalized by the end of December 2010 and partially (with two team members) it started its activities right from the beginning of 2011 and gradually the two others members were also joined the project in January and February. Unfortunately, the project did not have any funds and $100 000 that was expected to be given from UNFPA costs and supposed to be returned at the later stages was not documented accordingly and submitted to MoF that created shortage of funds during the last quarter of 1389 (first quarter of 2011). For covering the project costs MoF with the support of WB office in Kabul gave a loan of $30 000 and agreed that this amount will be refunded after the project effectiveness. The project, as it was indicated earlier, became effective from March 24, 2011 and the refunding was done only in September and that is why this amount is reflected in the financial report in the second quarter of 2011. So, now project cost has become clear and limpid to be checked by WB and the MoF gave the time-bound for this cost up to April 11, 2011 and was used in time. 2.1.4. Disbursement of funds. Implementation of SRF project activities can be observed through its funds disbursement that the project provides on the quarterly bases to WB, CSO and MoF. It is important to mention that the project budget indicates in the planned budget for the reporting quarter as $217 000 in total from which as the disbursement table below shows it was able to assimilate only $87,238.44. This amount is over 40% of the project plan for the reporting quarter. Calculating this amount with the total amount of disbursement we can get $169,076.88 or something close to 11% of the planned budget for current year and 1,21% for the entire amount of its budget (from the $14 million). Realization of the project activities indicated that it will come across a great deal of problems during the remaining of time for the current fiscal year if CSO will not act accordingly and accelerate the assimilation of funds and allow the project to speed up the implementation of certain activities that are directly related to their decision. It is envisaged that if CSO will act with full understanding and implement some of the project activities in time without any delay the project still has chance to implement at least 75% of its planned budget for the current year. These two main actions are; a) ICB for the IT facilities and b) Twinning arrangement that are the most important actions not only for the current year, but the entire project implementation depends on these actions. Moreover, PICT do understand that there are some other activities that are envisaged in the action plan and need CSO official approval for action and realization, such as statistical yearbook that needs to be published with the support of the SRF project, internet facilities for CSO staff and so on. The budget disbursement is indicated in the Table 1. IDA (US $14,000,000)
Below is given the percentage of the planned budget and its actual assimilation in a type of pie which clearly indicates that SRF activities were more successful during the first quarter rather than the second. In first quarter SRF was able to disburse 63.4% of the planned budget, while during the second quarter this amount was reduced to 40.2%. As for the annual plan and actual it is still quite far from planned action and has been accomplished only by almost 11%. It means that SRF needs to speed up its action and dramatically increase the assimilation of funds in the remaining next two quarters. 1st quarter of 1390 2nd quarter of 1390
Annual plan and actual It is expected that during the next quarter several main activities of the project are being envisaged and the total budget expenditure has been planned as $640 000 which exceeds the current budget disbursement of both quarters by 3,8 times and will bring the percentage of annual assimilation of project fund along with these two quarters up to 52%, provided that CSO will act accordingly and in time. 2.1.5. WB financial management and disbursement capacity building workshop. WB has been implementing over 50 projects in Afghanistan in 2011 and some of thses projects are justs have been started in current year. According to the bank's plan of actions these projects do need to obtain some knowledge of the WB financial ruels and procedures that can help to run the financial acitvities of projects and make it much easier to manage the disbursement process. For that purpose WB offfice in Kabul has planned a workshop on the above mentioned topic and SRF and CSO team also was involved which was arranged by financial team of WB office in Kabul on September 7, 2011 at the Serena Hotel. This event aimed to build on the strong foundation laid in the previous workshops and capacity building activities undertaken on a periodic basis. This workshop focused on specific areas/topics under project financial management requirements, interim unaudited financial reports and disbursements and the training materials were customized to address those specific areas. The topics were based on the findings of the FM team from the various implementation support missions, review of IUFRs and the queries received from the project finance teams. The key purpose of this workshop was to strengthen further the client’s project FM systems through an enhanced understanding of the various requirements/good practices in order to ensure the achievement of the objective of improving project financial management performance and to provide acceptable assurance on the use of Bank funds. In particular, it was moved towards sharing knowledge with clients through a highly interactive process on the specific topics to provide greater clarity.
In general the trip was very informative for both sides that came to know the financial procedures of both countries and find out a great deal of similarities as well. The biggest discrepancy that was find out was related to income policy of both countries, which gives more opportunity to Tajikistan for usage of income money for the purpose of the organization, from which only 15% will be given to MoF and the rest of amount organization can use for its current needs. Income money in Afghanistan should be submitted to their special accounts at the MoF (so called account 600100) and then the organization can submit M16 form with coding sheets and B27 according to the government financial system, which makes it more complicated. CSO will get the required money through the DAB as it requires for any official fund requirement. As for the payment order in Afghanistan it will be implemented through the M16 which will be prepared by the financial staff and will be checked by the controlling group (each one of them signs it and put any stamps if required) and then one copy of this payment order will be kept in the office and the original submits to MoF. It will be checked by the ministry and if there is some mistakes it will be rejected and then accordingly the revised version will be submitted again, that will follow the MoF procedure for preparation of payment order and the amount will be transferred to Kabul Bank from where the payment can be taken by appointed person from CSO. The financial information in Tajikistan submits to MoF in computerized files in the forms that were developed by MoF and it has simple tracking and reporting system in its Planning Department with procedure for safe custody of accounting records and filling system. The MoF has rules for fund transfer in each of the subprogram, reporting requirements, and quality assurance measures to help and ensure that adequate internal controls and procedures are in place and are being followed. 2.2. Procurement issues. Among all main activities reflected in the PP two major procurement activities have been planned for the second quarter of 1390 and the efficiency of project implementation and abovementioned disbursement was closely related to both of them, which would have increased the project assimilation dramatically. Twinning arrangement on its own is the biggest activity of SRF project that covers 57% of the entire project budget and project pays close attention to this activity and it has been strictly controlled and managed by the WB as well. At the same time the plan envisaged that IT infrastructure will be procured for CSO central and regional offices that can meet all the current shortfalls and upgrades CSO IT capacity. Both of the mentioned actions will lead to technical and professional capacity building of this organization and are in close control of the SRF project the detail information of which is given below. Despite these very important and major project activities SRF had some minor actions as well, that are able to create valuable niche for possible improvement and capacity building in years to come. Taken into account the importance of human resource development, needs for IT security and updating of the CSO website the project started the implementation of three basic courses (English language, Computer skills and Basic mathematics), purchased the Anti-viruses and started the CSO website development from the second quarter of 1390. According to the updated procurement plan PICT managed to bring some improvements in the following activities: a). Submission of RFP to the shortlisted companies and arrangement of two pre-proposal conferences with the potential bidders for twinning arrangement; b) Conducting of ICB bidding for the IT equipment with the support of the ARDS and its further evaluation at the CSO level; c) Signing contracts with the local trainers for Computer skills, English language and Basic mathematics; d) Revision of IT issues in the Procurement Plan and its discussion with CSO on September 12, 2011; e) State of play of Web Development of CSO's website and its maintenance; f) Announcement of the new positions for PICT (Internal Audit, Translator of Pashtu language); g) Purchasing of antivirus for CSO;
It is important to indicate that the mail exchange among WB and ARDS was actually quite difficult for the project to check and follow. SRF has got a copy of one mail that was sent to the WB on July 11, 2011 and asked WB to give its final decision in regard to the Twinning Partnership. Finally the NOL was obtained by August 2nd and during a week (August 9) RFP was issued to the two shortlisted companies. Along with this information it was agreed that CSO will conduct a pre-proposal meeting with both companies approximately over two weeks prior to the submission data and reply for any unclear issue for the finalization of the proposal. In fact the pre-proposal meeting was arranged with both companies on September 5 in different time due to the time difference of both countries and its compliance with CSO which indicated that both of them are really interested in the assignment and working hard to submit their proposal. Later on with approach to the ARDS one of the companies (TTT) had offered that due to the difficult situation in the country it might be the DHL information will not reach the organization in time and asked for one week extension of biding time. It was accepted by CSO and the bidding time was changed from September 21 to September 28, 2011 the results of which will be presented in the next report information. 2.2.2. ICB for the IT equipment and its results. By the end of second quarter of 2011 the specification of the IT equipment, especially for the processors were clarified and it was agreed that from the 180 PC that was initially envisaged in the ANSP and SRF documentation 85 computers will be with the top specification (8GB RAM, 1000 GB hard drive) and another 85 with lower specification (4GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive) and the remaining 10 computers will be portable (laptops). The SBD had been sent to the WB on July 2nd and during over a 7 working days the project has got the NOL for these activities that were taken to the level of official announcement on the local and international publications for potential bidders. The SPN was officially announced on UNDB and dg Market websites by July 20 and three days later it appeared on the Afghanistan news as well (it was published on Armani Milli and Outlook Afghanistan). At the same time bid documents were issued to the bidders and ARDS has sent this bid to over 100 different companies that are registered at this organization all over the World. The bidding documents reflected that CSO can arrange a pre-bidding meeting two weeks prior to the bid opening date and inform the potential bidders all the required issues. Unfortunately, or it might be fortunately, this action was canceled on the later stage by CSO with the projection that it might create problems for CSO and allows the companies to establish concerted actions against the bid with maximum price. Bid opening was organized in time on September 6, 2011 and only four firms were applied for this bid that all were national companies. It seems that all international companies are either not interested in this kind of services in Afghanistan or do not want to have any relationships with the local government due to the big amount of paper work according to the government procedure. The four firms that have been participated in the bidding process are as follows:
It was initially indicated by ARDS that the last company did not present the bid security and according to the procedure is not eligible for evaluation. Unfortunately, ARDS did not exclude this company form the list of companies supposed to be evaluated by CSO and the evaluation team looked at the bidding document of this company as well. The evaluation committee found that any single firm was not able to meet the offered requirements and according decision was submitted to ARDS. This organization has the right to check and make its comments on the transparency and quality of the evaluation which was fortunately accepted and submitted to the WB with the recommendation of possible revision of bid criteria from CSO and re-advertising it once more. 2.2.3. Local training courses arrangements. Actually local training was an activity that was planned from the beginning of SRF project action and because of several different obstacles it was not implemented up to the end of second quarter of 1390 or third quarter of 2011. Initially it was not implemented due to the lack of funds in the project, in the later stages, from June onwards when the project has got its funds, arrangements of local training was postponed due to the official regulations in the country. Although PICT had discussed with the Department of Training Centre of CSO and agreed that the Department will invite potential trainers for conducting the training courses on Computer skills, English language and Basic mathematics and the established by CSO team will interview the potential applicants and will select the most appropriate candidates for the given subjects, it was asked to announce the positions in the official site and wait for the results. The TOR for the given positions was submitted to the Bank by July 11, 2011 and the NOL letter was obtained on July 19. As a local activity it was submitted for the announcement to ACBAR site which was officially announced on July 29 with the duration of 11 days as long as a great deal of candidates started to approach the project for the announcement of these position, who has got the information from CSO staff members already. This was proved by the number of potential applicants that have applied for these three positions, where PICT has got over 203 CVs, or in average almost 68 CVs per position. Actually, that is why, the short-listing time took a little bit longer and by August 22 it was competed, while the process of interview and evaluation was finalized by September 3 and the first training course – English language started from the next day. The two others – Computer skills and Basic mathematics were arranged by September 18 and 19th accordingly. It is important to indicate that local trainings are only one simple way of capacity building activities that SRF project is going to implement in its action plan. There are still possibilities of getting higher education with the help a local university that is under way and a wide range of actions with the help and support of twinning partner in the form of study visits, learning by doing and on the job trainings that can bring the expected changes for the organization. It is still not clear what amount of these actions will be implemented by the twinning partner and that is why PICT is not able to make the projection for the capacity building and its impact on the development process at the CSO level, which can be presented soon after the contract signature and implementation of inception phase by the potential partner by the end of FY 1390.
Moreover, the IT infrastructure that was presented before was raised again and it was agreed that if the CSO IT staff are able to make the required assessment then this action with the support of WB can be removed from the procurement plan list and allow the IT team conduct their assessment and present it in a well designed report to CSO/PICT and the WB, based on what the IT infrastructure will be purchased and installed accordingly. The minutes of this meeting is given in the annexes (see the annex No 2). 2.2.5. State of play of Web Development of CSO's website and its maintenance. According to Afghanistan National Statistical Plan, CSO must develop a new up to date website to disseminate statistical data in monthly bases. The new website template has been given to CSO by the ministry of information and communication technology. The website has been designed and the development of website is in progress according to the agreed plan of web developer. During the reporting time the following data have been placed in CSO website starting from July 2011.
As a modern statistical agency serving the needs of many other agencies at the national and local le vels, CSO is committed to creating a transparent environment that will max i mize the opportunities to use its data. CSO has been developing its website. An early version is now online, and further enhancements are anti cipated soon. After the new site is fully built, the next task will be to post data on the web. For a start, CSO could post monthly updates for the CPI and trade data, as well as frequent updates for national accounts. CSO website before July 2011 CSO website after July 2011  
2.2.6. Announcement of the new positions for PICT. During the reporting period PICT supposed to announce four positions that were envisaged on the PAD and agreed upon at the later stage of its activities. It was agreed that PICT will finalize them with CSO and make the final decision. Unfortunately, any final decisions were not made yet and it is planned to be confirmed during the next TTL visit to CSO. 2.2.7. Procurement of anti-viruses for CSO personnel. In regards to the IT issues PICT pointed out two main issues that need to be implemented prior to the twinning arrangement and hopefully will bring some hope and reduce the internal problems on the departments’ level. CSO personnel do not have good and reliable internet and any computers security or at least anti-viruses to protect the entire system of CSO. As long as the Internet is closely related to the IT development activities and it was not decided by CSO to arrange this action, so PICT agreed with the IT department to purchase at least appropriate anti-viruses for CSO to install in the computers and prevent the facilities from further possible damages which was envisaged in the SRF procurement plan as well. According to the CSO request PICT has arranged to purchase 120 CDs of Kaspersky anti-viruses which were not installed in the computer till recently due to unavailability of internet in the most of Departments. 3. SRF PROJECT RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER ONGOING PROJECTSSRF project from the beginning of its activity has been insisting on the importance of good cooperation and coordination among all the players that are somehow involved with any kinds of statistical actions. Arranging these actions at the CSO level and managing them as per se will enable the organization to address these issues to other line agencies as well. For the time being CSO is directly or indirectly involved with regard to different aspects of statistical activities with such organizations as UNFPA, UNDP, TAF, ADB, WB, JICA, DFID, EC, KOICA and ctr. The range of organization by itself confirms that not having good coordination and cooperation with them will increase the chance of repetition and duplication and leaving some important action out of view or interest. SRF interest, as long as its main activities with the twinning partners is not started yet, is to find out what kinds of actions and activities have been planned by other institutions that must not be reflected in its action plan both to avoid its repetition and accordingly to cover more actions in wider aspect. Although SRF is not succeeding in its actions so far it does hope that these actions will be more fruitful as soon as the twinning partner will enter the project and it will be able to raise the same problems to address it with all organizations and develop a joint plan of CSO capacity building, which will considerably increase the efficacy of taken steps. 3.1. ADB activities at CSOIt is important to point out that ADB action with CSO are based on the issues that has been discussed among them at the beginning of the year and will be implemented upon the availability of ADB relevant staff members or required trainer for any planned course. Actually according to the information of ADB representative at CSO some training courses were planned that unfortunately were not conducted in time and postponed to the next quarter. These courses are presented in table 2 below: Training plan of ADB for the third quarter of 2011 Table 2
PICT is not aware of the personnel that will be involved in them and the expected impact on CSO which, by the way, is still not finalized by the ADB representative yet. So, PICT expects that these actions must be discussed among the project TTL with ADB and according actions needs to be taken to coordinate training activities for the future that has to be in line with local training of SRF and planned training of the project in the framework of the expecting twinning arrangement. 3.2. MICS, NRVA and other CSO field operations’ activities. 3.2.1. Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS): During the reporting time upon arrival of cluster’s forms from the field to CSO, the data entry of last clusters, which had been delayed due to security problems in some of the provinces, has been carried out and the MICS’s data process was already completed. The preliminary results and key indicators of MICS are ready for disseminating in accordance with the format used by other countries. 3.2.2. National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA): According to the NRVA information the 1st and 2nd months data collection was started in May and has been finalized almost in time and was entered into the database. As for the third one, it was finalized in more than 20 provinces and for the rest of the provinces it is still in progress and the NRVA does expect to finalize it by October 10, 2011. It is important to indicate that in parallel to this activities the preparation has been taken for the second quarter of data collection, all the questionnaires and maps has been prepared and printed. The NRVA team is planning to organize second round of regional workshop and make adequate preparation for the second quarter of data collection (It is important to indicate that NRVA team is conducting the data collection on the quarterly bases). During NRVA’s survey, five clusters from each 34 provinces have been surveyed in each month. All the planned clusters had been surveyed during 1st and 2nd months of the quarter, but during 3rd month 17 clusters from the total of 170 clusters were not finished in time and are under survey. Other clusters have already been completed. The completed forms of first three months have been arrived to the center and the forms of 1st and 2nd months after editing have been computerized in accordance with the instruction. The assigned team checks and edits the forms of 3rd month survey. After completing the mentioned task, the data entry will be carried out. A comprehensive evaluation of NAVA’s assigned personnel was carried out within three months. The preliminary analyses of the 1st month data has been started by ICON’s specialist and one employee from the NRVA team. Personnel evaluation and data analyze indicated that there are still difficulties in the actions of personnel both in the field and in the office. These difficulties must be resolved in accordance with the prepared report. It is important to point out that initially NRVA team did not take into account the double entry of obtained data and after coming across these problems this decision was made. Taken into consideration all the above-mentioned issues field personnel were instructed to start 4th month survey based on updated forms and maps.
On September 3, 2011, based on recruiting of 400 supervisors and controller, the social –demographical and economic survey was practically started in the areas where the sketch maps and household lists had been prepared. Later, the work of data collection of survey continued gradually throughout Bamyan Province. Presently, 80% of data collection work has been completed and the district’s forms are checked and controlled in the center of Bamyan. The assigned team has been involved with coding of the forms and entering the data of three districts in the center of Bamyan. The remaining forms of 4 other districts have been sent to the center for checking, coding and data entry. 3.2.4. The household listing and preparing sketch map for Bamyan: Implementation of social-demographic and economical survey in Bamyan requires some initial activities that can prepare the actual and real condition for conducting the survey. One of the main preconditions is preparation of household listing and a sketch map that clarifies the scope of work, required timeline, number of interviewers and supervisors, expected duration of survey in the region and ctr. During the reporting time CSO had sent 35 cartographers and recruited 35 local cartographer’s assistants with the support of 7 supervisors, to prepare and finalize the household listing that was completed within the assigned period of time in the center and 5 districts of Bamyan Province based on supervision of Bamyan Statistics Office. The listing work in Yakaulang District was completed one week later because the work could not started in due and expected time. The completed forms and sketches arrived to the center and the work of GIS team and data entry group is underway. 3.3. UNDP/NIBP Capacity Development Advisor activities During the reporting period CDA for CSO - Dr. Mishra has been involved with different type of activities that were related to the capacity development and clarifying the training needs analyses for the CSO staff members based on which SRF can arrange the training activities with our twinning partners on the later stage. According to the information of Dr. Mishra CDA jointly with CSO has been carried out the following activities:
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