THE “success” of the key infrastructure thrust of the Aquino administration lies on three core factors: planning, implementation and an agency that streamlines the whole process, a government executive revealed.
Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center Executive Director Cosette V. Canilao made this remark during a gathering of global infrastructure fund managers and asset owners, institutional investors, infrastructure developers and other foreign government and multilateral agencies in London last week.
Canilao was one of the speakers at the Infrastructure Investor: Emerging Markets Forum 2014 in London, England. It was organized by the Private Equity International, a financial information group dedicated to the alternative asset class of private equity globally.
The two-day forum aimed at providing insights from leading figures on the goals, challenges, risks and opportunities associated with emerging market-infrastructure developments.
During the forum, Canilao discussed the government’s role in accelerating infrastructure development and creating a framework attractive to private-sector investment.
She also presented the various PPP investments opportunities in the country, PPP projects open to bidding, and the status of awarded projects.
The highlight of her talk was the sharing of the Philippines’s experience in building up the country’s key infrastructure program through the PPP Center and major efforts in the areas of policy and process improvements, project development and structuring, capacity building, continuous dialogue with the market and public communications.
This experience has, in fact, been considered a source of learning for countries in the Asia-Pacific region developing their own PPP programs. Recently, the royal governments of Tonga and Bhutan visited the country to gain insights and study the Filipino brand of the key infrastructure program.
“The key success factors of the Philippines PPP program are the Project Development and Monitoring Facility and active Public-Private Partnership Center facilitation during project preparation,” Canilao said.
She also emphasized the importance of a streamlined evaluation process for PPP projects.
“Another success factor is the streamlined PPP evaluation process with core Technical Working Group composed of PPP Center, the Department of Finance, National Economic and Development Authority and the Department of Environment and National Resources,” she added.
The government is currently pushing for the amendment of the build-operate-transfer law into the PPP Act to facilitate more private-sector investments in key infrastructure and development sectors and to ensure sustainability of the program.
Jonathan L. Mayuga