Tk 3,500cr for PPP projects again

The government is considering keeping the same allocation — Tk 3,500 crore — for the public-private partnership (PPP) projects in the national budget for the upcoming 2022-23 financial year, according to Finance Ministry sources.

In the current 2021-22 and last 2020-21 fiscal years, the same amount — Tk 3,500 crore — was allocated for the PPP projects.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is set to table a Tk 6,77,864 crore budget for FY2022-23 in parliament on June 9, with a projected GDP size of Tk 44,12,849 crore and a Tk 2,44,913 crore deficit.

After coming into power in 2009, the Awami League government introduced the PPP model to implement mega development projects and received a huge positive response from various quarters. But in the last decade, the PPP projects have failed to live up to people’s expectations.

Although a large sum is allocated for PPP in the budget every fiscal, the authorities concerned fail to use the money and much of it is left unused.

In the past decade, only one PPP project was completed and six others are still underway. At present, 79 projects are scheduled to be implemented under the state-run PPP Authority, against which the investment amount is $27.76 billion.

The PPP Authority was established in 2010. It formally started operating in January 2012. Initially, there was a lot of interest in PPP among local and foreign investors and entrepreneurs, but over time, the work has moved at a snail’s pace.

The only PPP project that has been fully implemented in the past decade is the establishment of kidney dialysis centres at two hospitals — the National Institute of Kidney Diseases and Urology and Chittagong Medical College Hospital.

According to PPP Authority, 79 PPP projects — mostly big ones in the communication and infrastructure sectors — will be implemented in different periods in future. Apart from eight of these projects, the work orders, contracts and memoranda of understanding of almost all the others are at the signing stage — which is the first step of implementation.