Ghana launches national policy on public-private partnership
Mr Fiifi Kwetey, a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, on Tuesday said the government would continue to create an enabling environment for private sector participation so as to close the country’s infrastructure gap.
He said Ghana and many other Africa countries faced significant infrastructure gap and that without the contribution of the private sector some African countries would continue to face infrastructure challenges.
Mr Kwetey said this in Accra when he launched the National Policy on Public Private Partnership (PPP) in Accra aimed at providing a clear and consistent process for all aspects of project development and implementation.
He said the country was facing monumental challenges in infrastructure development and public service delivery, which constrained the growth of the economy and needed to be reversed with the support of the private sector.
Mr Kwetey said Ghana’s medium-term annual infrastructure gap was estimated to be about $1.5 billion and that financing the gap would require generating funds from a range of resources including the PPPs.
He called on the private sector to feel confident and comfortable since their investments would be protected at all times irrespective of the government in power.
Mr Kwetey said experience all over the world had shown that PPPs could best be implemented if political and regulatory risk perceptions were taken into account and that policy development and involvement of all stakeholders were important for the success of PPP programmes.
He said the development of the PPP was to demonstrate to the private sector that government was ready to tap into the wealth of experience, knowledge and ready capital accumulated by the private sector in accelerating the country’s infrastructure development.
Mr Enoch Cobbinah, Chief Director of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, said the PPPs were cooperative ventures between the public and private sector, which was built on the expertise of each partner.
He said Ghana’s development efforts in the past had been seriously constrained by infrastructure challenges in all sectors of the economy while past and continuing governments’ efforts to close the infrastructure gap had been appreciable.
Mr Cobbinah said the lack of adequate social and economic infrastructure had persisted because of limited funding and the complete absence of private sector investments in public infrastructure delivery.
He said the launch of the PPP was a concrete step towards laying the foundation for the private sector to partner Government in the provision of public infrastructure and services through a public private partnership arrangement.
Source: GNA