PPP: AfDB Promises Legal Expertise, Technical Structure

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has  said that it would provide the legal expertise and technical structure for Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in the country.
The bank’s country Director, Dr Ousmane Dore, made this known in an interview with newsmen  in Abuja, yesterday.
Dore said that in most PPP arrangements, the public sector being the government, usually bore most of the risks in PPP, adding that “it’s not supposed to be’’.
He said that the AfDB had set up an advisory hub to develop the capacity needed for the government not to bear all the risk of PPP.
According to Dore, AfDB’s aim is to strengthen the delivery of infrastructure and public service for effective implementation of PPP programme through knowledge and technical skill enhancement.
“ You need to have the capacity expertise and this hub is going to be an advisory hub that will help strengthen the capacity of the government to undertake complex PPP arrangement.
“The hub will promote the application of global best practices through advisory support on projects and provide capacity and institutional development.
“It will also provide assistance to formulate government policy support and provide incentives to embark on projects and activities that can be made attractive to private sectors.
“It will work in the sense that we will be providing the expertise in terms of legal and in terms of technical structuring of this project,’’ he said.
Dore said that the bank had a legal facility that would be tapped into to bring in experts across the world where PPP had been successful.
“This will be providing support to the government and the PPPs set-up in the various MDAs to deliver an infrastructure project that is to the benefit of the people,’’ Dore said.