The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has outlined steps on how the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects will be conducted.
With timelines in the next 12 months to two years, the privatization agency said the implementation of the new Federal Government’s circular on the administration of PPP projects in the country would begin early next year.
Steps to achieving the projects
The Director General of the privatisation agency, Mr. Alex A. Okoh in a statement on Tuesday said the first step involves the engagement with Key Ministries, Departments and Agencies to workout modalities for implementing the FG circular.
He said, in the first quarter of 2021, the Bureau would develop and circulate a template that would enable MDAs to document all the ongoing PPP transactions and their current status and that the Bureau, working together with the MDAs, would host two additional webinars in the first quarter of next year.
“One of the webinars will be targeted at local and international financial institutions, including international development financial institutions. These are the partners that are expected to provide funding to investors in the Nigerian PPP market”, he stated.
According to the Director General, “the second webinar will be targeted at local and foreign construction companies, infrastructure management companies and other investors who are global players in the delivery of infrastructure through PPP arrangements”.
In the same vein, he said, the second quarter of next year, the update or development of Nigeria’s pipeline of PPP projects would be finalised and launched, thus, signalling the commencement of the procurement phase of individual PPP projects across the country.
“Also in the second quarter, a webinar will be held for Governors and other sub-national leaders to obtain their buy-in given that they are critical stakeholders in the delivery of infrastructure” and that the last step would lead to the establishment of Transaction Implementation Committees (TIC) where each Transaction Implementation Committee will be established with membership drawn from the Bureau of Public Enterprises and relevant MDAs in the third quarter, with the mandate to deliver specific projects contained in the approved national project pipeline.
He commended President Muhammadu Buhari for the bold and creative approach to infrastructure development in Nigeria even as he thanked the Vice President and Chairman of the National Council on Privatization (NCP), Prof. Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) for his advice and unrelenting commitment to ensuring that Nigeria is able to unlock investment capital into the infrastructure space, boost economic development and create jobs.
