The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Departments of Finance (DOF) and of Budget and Management (DBM) are teaming up with the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) on finding ways to accelerate the implementation of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects by cutting from an average time of 29 months to fewer than 20 months the time for proponents to actually start their infrastructure projects.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III told about 600 business leaders during a recent economic forum that there would be no hiatus in the implementation of PPP ventures already in the pipeline, saying the Duterte administration would never commit the mistake of the previous administration in suspending this vital public infrastructure program for two years while it reviewed all then-pending projects.
“We have noted that a typical PPP project takes 29 months from the average to get started, and definitely we’ve been discussing with the Neda, which is in charge of the PPP Center, as well as with the budget department, that this process has to be speeded up and brought down to probably [fewer than] 20 months,” Dominguez said during the question-and-answer portion of BusinessWorld’s First Economic Forum at Shangri-La at The Fort in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City.
“We’re going ahead with all of them. we will just assume that the previous administration did the right thing and then we will push ahead, so there will be no hiatus in time for the PPP projects that are already in the pipeline so we’re not going to review them,” the finance chief said.
“We’re going to review the process of the approvals, and cutting down the red tape for getting all the approvals for all these projects,” he sadded.
Dominguez also said that they “have lined up quite a number of [infrastructure] projects or implementations either through the PPP or through government budget methods.”
He said one of the Duterte administration’s key priorities is to ramp up spending on infrastructure development, particularly outside of Metro Manila, to generate employment opportunities in the countryside, help decongest the nation’s capital, and achieve progress and inclusive growth for all.
In his speech at the event, Dominguez said: “What we plan to do is to improve the efficiency of delivering basic services and infrastructure to benefit our communities. To accomplish this, we will need to cut redundancy in our procedures.”
“Among the things we aspire for in the short term are [revising] the procurement law to simplify and streamline the process; simplifying the permit requirements for infrastructure projects; creating a prioritization list and delineating delivery responsibilities between national and local projects; and improving the absorptive capacity of key government agencies through better planning and project execution,” he added.
He announced at the same event that he has picked Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran to be the “anti-red tape czar” in charge of speeding up processes at the DOF and its attached agencies, in keeping with President Duterte’s very first directive for all government offices to provide hassle-free frontline services to the public.
Beltran is finance undersecretary for policy development management and the department’s concurrent chief economist.