Deadline: 26-Jul-21
The U.S. Embassy Dhaka and the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs at the U.S. Department of State (DOS), announces this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the 2021 Fiscal Transparency Innovation Fund to support projects increasing transparency and accountability in the management of major state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Bangladesh.
This opportunity is designed to address recommendations laid out in the Bangladesh chapter of the U.S. Department of State’s global Fiscal Transparency Report 2020: ensuring Bangladeshi SOEs have publicly available audited financial statements, eliminating off-budget accounts or subjecting them to publicly available audits, preparing budget documents according to internationally accepted principles, making audit reports by the supreme audit institution publicly available within a reasonable period of time, and making basic information about natural resource extraction awards publicly and consistently available.
Objectives
- Objective 1: Support select SOEs in releasing their first year-end financial statements in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and undergo audits from independent chartered accountants.
- Objective 2: Work with the Ministry of Finance in Bangladesh to easily integrate SOE audits into their financial system using locally developed software.
- Objective 3: Prepare a strategy for the Ministry of Finance for transition and eventual adoption of IFRS for all Bangladesh SOEs.
Funding Information
- Period of Performance: 24 months
- Funding Amount: $ 247,500 U.S. Dollars
- Number of Awards: 1
Main Activities
To achieve the goals and expected results, the program could include the following:
- Assess SOE capacity to prepare financial statements and meet international standards of fiscal transparency. Implementation methods could include questionnaires and key informant interviews with individuals within each SOE responsible for financial management and reporting, as well as SOE leadership. This may require the services of a professional accounting firm.
- Train accounting staff of project SOEs to produce their first year-end financial statements in accordance with IFRS.
- Train independent chartered accountants on IFRS, if necessary.
- Working with local developers, create customized software tools that integrate SOE audits into the Ministry of Finance’s financial system
- Publish a report outlining recommendations for Ministry of Finance for transition and eventual adoption of IFRS for all Bangladesh SOEs.
- Publicize the release of the report with a public (or virtual) event involving Ministry of Finance officials.
Expected Results
- Target SOEs should, to the extent possible, include the six largest SOEs – Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC), Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB), Petrobangla, Bangladesh Railways, and Bangladesh Shipping Corporation.
- Specific results could include the following:
- Select SOEs will have the capacity to prepare IFRS-compliant financial statements.
- Ministry of Finance able to undertake a comprehensive audit of the select SOEs and make the results available to the public.
- Ministry of Finance staff able to use new software tools to integrate audits into the ministry’s existing financial system.
- Ministry of Finance and the public having a reliable and reasonably full picture of target SOEs’ expenditures and revenue streams.
Eligibility Criteria
The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- Not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society/non-governmental organizations, both U.S. and foreign.
- Public and private educational institutions, both U.S. and foreign.
- For-profit organizations, both U.S. and foreign.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=334218