Posted : 05 Jun, 2015, Source
Finance Minister AMA Muhith Thursday acknowledged his government's failure to make any visible progress in the implementation of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects.
"During the last six years, I spoke many a time about the implementation of PPP initiatives. But there has been little progress. There is no denying the fact that initially, our procedural and institutional framework was not robust enough to take this agenda forward," the minister said in his budget speech.
He, however, was optimistic that some reform programmes have been taken up, which may speed up implementation of PPP ventures.
"…it is heartening to note that in order to overcome these problems, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Bill, 2015 has already been tabled in parliament. In tandem, our reform programmes to improve governance are expected to infuse dynamism in PPP initiatives," Mr Muhith added.
He said some 42 projects have already been approved in principle under the PPP, of which agreements for three projects have been signed and two more waiting for the same. Besides, transaction advisers have been appointed for 24 projects.
However, Muhith did not propose fresh allocation for PPP initiatives in this budget; rather he will go ahead with Tk 30 billion set aside so far for it.
The government for the first time in fiscal year 2009-10 introduced the PPP concept and earmarked budgetary allocation of Tk 25 billion.
In the following fiscal year, the government raised the allocation to Tk 30 billion. Since then no fresh allocation was made for the scheme, rather carried forward the allocation to the subsequent years.
The government established the Bangladesh Infrastructure Financing Fund (BIFF) as a company to administer the PPP fund and Tk 25 billion was allocated in favour of it.
Of the rest, some Tk 1.0 billion was kept with the PPP office, a body under the Prime Minister's Office, for conducting technical surveys on projects.
Apart from this, Tk 4.0 billion has been kept as a viability gap fund to inject money into the projects, where necessary, in view of national and public interests.