5-year roadmap assures full implementation of PPP, says Coloma

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino has put in place a roadmap for the country from 2011 to 2016 that would assure that the government will go full swing with its much-delayed Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program, Palace officials said.

In an interview over ABS-CBN’s “Umagang Kay Ganda,” Secretary Herminio Coloma of the Presidential Communications Operations Office said the economic roadmap has been laid out in the five Cabinet clusters in the forum they held weeks before Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

This is called Philippine Development Plan 2011-2016, and details of this can be found online at the official website of the National Economic Development Authority, www.neda.gov.ph.

The SONA technical report can also be found there and is open to the public, he disclosed.

“This is accessible online. It has 62 pages which enumerates the significant accomplishments in each area of government, including employment,” Coloma said.

For his part, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said PPP will be launched in the second half of this year.

He said that legal and technical setbacks have been hampering the full implementation of the Aquino administration’s PPPs.

“Well, you know there were certain either legal or technical questions that came into play. But in the second semester, according to the economic managers, all 10 [projects] should be ready for tendering,” he said.

He added that by processing the 10 priority PPPs, the administration hoped it will open the opportunity for investors to come in this year.

There is an efficient selection of potential investors in the country’s PPP projects, starting from the Finance Department and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) before the contracts reach the Office of the President, Abad said.

“So, there is an efficient process — for processing interested investors who want to come to the Philippines,” he said, adding that the administration wants to make every project corruption-free because the wrong choice of projects would throw peoples’ money away.

Among the list of PPP infrastructure projects include the contracts for the operation and maintenance for Metro Rail Transit 3 and Light Rail Transit 1.

Aside from the rail management contract, other initial projects under the PPP program are the P1.6-billion Daang Hari-South Luzon Expressway (SLEX) Link Road Project; the P10.59-billion Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Expressway Phase II Project; and the P21-billion North Luzon Expressway-SLEX Connector Project.

The PPP program is considered the centerpiece of the Aquino administration’s economic program aimed at tapping private sector participation in large-scale infrastructure projects that will be carried out from 2011 onwards.

The PPP scheme welcomes the participation of the private sector to fund the different government projects.