‘PPPs important to national, local infra programs’
The National Economic and Development Authority has stressed the importance of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a mechanism that can address the financial needs of infrastructure and services of national and especially local governments.
“NEDA views PPPs as an alternative way for local government units (LGUs) to effectively and efficiently deliver basic services,” Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga Jr. said in a recent meeting with NEDA regional officials.
Paderanga, who is also NEDA director-general, said that NEDA will provide a checklist or template to help LGUs get into PPP-type arrangements in delivering basic services.
“With LGUs being at the forefront in local development, it is important that the options available for the implementation and financing of local initiatives are clear to them,” he said.
President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, in his State of the Nation Address, identified PPPs as a strategy to finance government projects like infrastructure and basic services through the assistance of the private sector.
Paderanga also said there is a need to link multi-modal transport systems among identified growth centers in the regions that could facilitate PPP projects in the areas.
“Addressing transportation gaps and completing the whole transport infrastructure towards these centers should be prioritized as these will help lessen the cost of doing business in the country,” he said.
Multimodal transport systems involve air, sea and road transportation modes within and between islands of the country. “It is important that the LGUs have already pre-identified projects for PPP, so that the more transparent solicited mode of procurement will be undertaken,” Paderanga said.
He said NEDA is also currently crafting a National Transport Plan that will give policy directions for a complete network of transport infrastructure that will ease economic integration between and among regional growth centers.
“In the long run, it will open up areas in the periphery to economic activities and promote development in more vicinities of the country,” Paderanga said.*
