A PPP unit is in the offing - Tibone

LEKOPANYE MOOKETSI
Correspondent | Monday December 6, 2010 00:00

 

The Assistant Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Charles Tibone, told Parliament on Friday that the two projects were the building housing the Ombudsman and the Land Tribunal and the [new] headquarters of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), both of which are in Gaborone.

The Office of the Ombudsman and Land Tribunal is a PPP pilot project that cost the private partner P55 million while the government is paying an annual unitary payment of P15.7 million. It provides office accommodation for 90 employees in an area of 28, 000-square metres over a 10-year concession period.

It includes courtrooms, offices, an auditorium, a cafeteria and parking space. Tibone said construction was undertaken and completed within the planned period of 16 months and that the project was handed over in July 2008.

The total contract value of SADC headquarters was US$23 million (approximately P154.9 million) with unitary payments of US$3.3 million per annum (approximately P22.2 million). The project entailed design, construction, financing and operation/maintenance of the new SADC headquarters to accommodate 250 personnel with an option to expand to 400 personnel over a 16-year concession period. Services include provision of offices, meeting facilities, a resource centre, parking space and maintenance.

Tibone was answering a question from the MP for Shoshong, Phillip Makgalemele, who wanted to know the value of PPP projects undertaken up to June 2010.

He also wanted to know the value of projects undertaken in the rural areas during the same period. Tibone said there were no projects undertaken in the rural areas during the same period because the country had borrowed heavily during 2009/10 in order to finance the deficit that followed a decline in government revenues. 'With the full ramifications of the crisis still unfolding, the government decided then that the 2010/11 budget should not introduce any new projects, but should instead focus on completing ongoing projects,' he said. Tibone also revealed that his ministry was in the process of establishing a PPP unit and that the position of Head of PPP had been submitted to the Upper Panel for grading. Three officers have been seconded to the prospective unit and training of staff across ministries is ongoing. The ministry is collaborating with the Commonwealth Secretariat and mature PPP units in Australia and South Africa for capacity-building. Through this collaboration, a total of 40 officers from various ministries have been trained. Partnerships Victoria has agreed to host one officer on attachment during the first quarter of 2011.

Tibone said because of the scarcity of PPP expertise worldwide, the Ministerial Tender Committee had approved a waiver for single sources of a consultancy company to help set up Botswana's PPP unit and that an invitation to tender had already been sent to the company. 

It is expected that the consultancy will start work in February 2011. 'The procedure to be followed by private sector parties who wish to venture into PPP projects is to respond to invitations for expression of interest whenever they are issued by implementing ministries so that they can be pre-qualified,' Tibone said.

'According to (the) Presidential Directive, PPP financing should be considered only for a ministry's highest return projects whose feasibility studies have confirmed that there was value for money in adopting the PPP financing option.'