A disagreement has emerged between Dhaka and Washington over the figures on aid the United States has provided to Bangladesh since 1971.

The Independent Tuesday quoted highly-placed sources as saying that the spat over "discrepancy" in aid figures originated when the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Andrew Natsios recently made a reference to the US's contribution to the development of Bangladesh.

In a meeting with the officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh, he reportedly reminded them that his government had doled out 5 billion US dollars assistance to Bangladesh since the fiscal year 1971-1972.

Natsios was in Dhaka recently on a four-day official tour to review the US aided programmes.

The foreign ministry officials refused to accept the figures provided by the United States, saying Dhaka has so far received just over 3.45 billion US dollars, which was based on its own information.

The officials said the amount of 3.45 billion dollars aid was based on the actual amount the government received and not inclusive of US assistance to the private sector.

But they said that even if the US aid to the private sector wastaken into account, the total amount would not go beyond the 4 billion dollars mark.

The US aid has followed a consistent path of decline since 1976,which resulted in its position as a bilateral donor country to slip to the fourth position, an official said.

Researchers of foreign aid found that Japan had replaced the United States as the largest donor country since 1986, while Japan's slice in the total aid pie had jacked up from a paltry 2.7 percent in 1973 to 18.5 percent in 1990.

The foreign ministry sent a letter on Sunday to the Economic Relations Division (ERD) of the Finance Ministry, asking for the latest figures on the US aid to Bangladesh since independent.

The foreign ministry will send the latest statistics of US aid to Bangladesh and forward it to the relevant US government agencies, including the USAID, following the receipt of inputs from the ERD.

Source: Xinhua