Gov�t moots legislating PPPs
Isaac Pinielo | Tuesday April 4, 2017 18:00
Speaking at a PPPs capacity building workshop for local authorities in Gaborone yesterday, secretary for development and budget in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Cornelius Dekop said currently there is no law governing the PPPs.
He said for the PPPs to work, supporting institutional, legal, and regulatory reforms are needed to open markets traditionally monopolised by the public sector to the private sector.
“To ensure a successful partnership, the skills and capacity of government officials to implement the PPPs projects must be enhanced,” he said.
Currently, PPPs operate under a policy and framework that were adopted in 2009 to create a stable policy environment for private sector participation in the provision of public infrastructure and services.
This existing institutional set up and capacity to handle PPPs was said to be inadequate as it lacks coordination of the initiatives.
According to Dekop, the public and private sectors used to be distinct players in providing, financing and managing public infrastructure and related services, with seemingly little compromise between the two.
He indicated that it was only a few decades ago that a compromise solution began to be explored, adding that it was realised that through PPPs, the private sector could play a larger role in helping deliver public infrastructure and services, thereby promoting economic and social development and improving the welfare of citizens.
“It goes without saying that governments have to complement their budgetary capacity with the wealth of innovative and specialist skills available in the private sector,” he said.
Dekop further stated that now, public private partnership is pursued by many countries, worldwide, and is undertaken in a wider range of sectors including transport, health, tourism, energy, office accommodation, education, IT and even prison services.
He added that many countries pursue them as part of their economic development or reform strategies, with some of the fastest growing economies in the world such as the Asian Tigers leveraging on PPPs to accelerate infrastructure development.
In Africa, particularly the Southern African Development Community region, Dekop said, the progress and success of PPPs have been mixed, and that the uptake relatively slow. However, he said there is optimism about potential to use PPPs to bridge the infrastructure gap and to provide the much needed public service.
“Although PPPs offer benefits, they also have costs and risks,” Dekop said.
On the one hand, he said the PPPs can bring real advantages such as additional funding, more efficient management expertise and greater opportunities for accelerated infrastructure development.
He added that such partnerships can face the risk of blurring of responsibilities and accountability and are sometimes perceived as being more costly than the public sector.
He said the challenge is to maximise the benefits of PPPs and minimise their possible costs by managing them well.
“Following the tightening of financial conditions in developed economies, growth in sub-Saharan countries, including Botswana, has been very small,” Dekop said.
He emphasised that this has resulted in huge infrastructure gaps, with poor infrastructure being a critical bottleneck for economic development in the region.
“If we have to get out of this situation, financing of the infrastructure deficit cannot be met by the public sector alone. The role of the private sector investment in public infrastructure and services becomes even more vital,” he said.