Bill set to invite private investors in State projects

The government will take the Public-Private Partnership Bill to parliament in the next one month in a bid to unlock funds from private industry.

Once it becomes law, it is intended to streamline process of entering contracts with the private investors on implementation of infrastructure projects in the country.

Finance permanent secretary Joseph Kinyua said joint ventures with the private investors was the only way to cover the funding gap that exists in infrastructure projects.

“It is currently estimated that there is a funding gap of approximately $44 billion that is needed to address the infrastructure requirements in the next five-to-eight years,” he said.

The PS was addressing a public-private partnership workshop at the Nairobi Hilton hotel on Monday.

He said the public-private partnerships will include power generation, ports, airports, railway, roads, water supply and irrigation, among others.

Concessions

The PPP arrangements will include long-term management contracts, leases, concessions, Build-Operate-and-Transfer, Build-Own -Operate and Rehabilitate-Operate-Transfer.

Mr Kinyua said the Bill will provide legal capacity to government bodies to enter PPP contracts, create certainty and investor confidence and seal the legal gaps in the current laws.

He said the workshop would identify projects that are viable, adding that they have to demonstrate value for money and are affordable to government and user, while providing reasonable return to investors.

In the past, he said, the process of identifying, prioritising and preparing PPP projects was slow and unco-ordinated.

“This approach does not augur well with the investors who would wish to see a PPP project for five, ten and even fifteen years to help them plan for investments,” Mr Kinyua said.

The director PPPs, Mr Stanley Kamau, said the tender committees lacked capacity to deal with huge and multi-layered projects and there might be a need for a separate body.