On Tuesday, The Asian Development Bank approved a $300 million emergency assistance loan for Pakistan to sustain its health response to the Covid-19 pandemic amid the climate change ministry’s bid to divert some of the funds to non-coronavirus activities.
$100 million is for the procurement of healthcare equipment and $200 million to help meet the basic needs of the poor segments of the society, approved by The Manila-based lending agency.
The National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF), whose administrative control has recently been handed over to the climate change ministry after withdrawing it from the economic affairs ministry.
However, the next day the climate change ministry refused to participate in the loan negotiations in protest as it was not invited to the concept clearance committee meeting, according to official documents.
The ministry was upset that the federal government had not shared with it the draft concept paper and it received the documents from the ADB instead.
Initially, there was also disagreement between the ADB and Pakistan over the sponsoring agency of the NDRMF, according to sources.
