Category 05

Development finance and monitoring

Initial appraisal, drawdown certification, cost to complete and reporting written for a credit team.

Verifying the final account before the last release

After the last release the lender has advanced everything and holds nothing. Whatever is going to be checked has to be checked before that.

You are not checking whether the number is right. You are checking whether it can be tested at all.

The borrower pays, the lender relies, and everybody works together every month. The only thing holding that arrangement together is structure.

Facilities do not fail suddenly. They fail slowly and then suddenly, and the slow part is visible from about the third month.

It is the only report written while the lender still has full negotiating leverage. Everything conditioned at this point is free.

A borrower's contingency is the lender's first line of defence. It is also the line most often set by convention rather than by analysis.

A facility does not fail because too much has been spent. It fails because what remains will not finish the job.

Every month somebody decides how much of a facility can be released. The difference between doing that properly and approving an application is...

The role is often described as checking progress. It is closer to answering one question every month: does the remaining money still finish the...