PPP law in offing to improve service delivery

Benefit. PPPs will open up the provision of public services for private capital and expertise in addition to helping government raise money for development projects.

The Public-Private Partnership Bill is expected to be passed into law to pave way for government to tap into private resources to build public infrastructure.
Addressing the African Conference on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Kampala last week, Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka said her ministry will ensure the Bill is gazetted by Parliament urgently to give legal guidelines for Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs).

PPPs are long-term contractual arrangements between the public and private sector in which the private sector is responsible for significant aspects of the building infrastructure to deliver public services.
PPPs are fronted as a good alternative to funding expensive and long-term undertakings like roads and railways. Under PPPs, infrastructure is built, managed and maintained by the private sector which then charges the public a certain fee for using the road.

PPPs are therefore expected to open up the provision of public services for private capital and expertise in addition to helping government raise billions of shillings for development projects.
Ms Kiwanuka said government is taking deliberate steps to emphasise the use of PPPs in service delivery to address the current infrastructure deficit in the country.

According to the draft National Vision 2040, Uganda has a railway line functionality deficit of about 2,400km of standard gauge with good rolling stock, when compared to the existing 250km by 2011.
The transport sector review report also indicates that Uganda has only 3,300km of paved roads as of 2011, falling short of the 62,000km of paved roads target by 2040 by 58,700km.
Vision 2040 also indicates that at only 850MW of electricity consumed in the country, Uganda has a deficit of 40,888MW to bridge the 41,738MW target in Vision 20140.

Dr Patrick Birungi, National Planning Authority head of strategic planning, recently said although the national development plan identifies a number of infrastructure projects to be implemented by 2015, the projects are unlikely to be implemented due to inadequate funding.
While the projects to be implemented require about $19 billion, Dr Birungi said, government’s contribution over the last five years was estimated at about $5 billion, leaving a funding gap of approximately $14 billion.

However, Prof. Ronald Fischer, a professor of Economics at the University of Chile, advised the Ugandan government to set up transparent systems and ensure competitive bidding to curb corruption in PPP tenders for infrastructure development.

Prof. Fischer also said government has to publish all information about all on-going PPPs so that the public can uncover abuses and put pressure on government to do the right thing.
“Although PPPs are a powerful tool to provide resources and human capital to drastically improve infrastructure, they provide scope for corruption especially in non-competitive awards, adding that in a country that is not clean, PPPs can be dangerous,” he said.

Ms Kiwanuka said PPPs are important now that Africa’s traditional source of bilateral and multilateral finance – European countries – are likely to be subjected to inevitable pressures in the wake of the Euro-zone crisis; thus, the need to partner with the private sector within the region to develop the necessary infrastructure.

fkulabako@ug.nationmedia.com