The Parliament issued a gazette notification on the Public Private Partnership Act 2015 yesterday which has a provision of establishing an authority board.
Under the PPP law, the body will be neutral and independent, and will have prime minister as its chairman and finance minister vice-chairman.
The PM will nominate a minister as its member while another member will be picked from a ministry concerned for the respective project. The principal secretary to PM will be the member secretary.
The PPP law also keeps a provision to hold meeting of the board of governors at least six times a year. It has a provision which will deal with resolving all barriers towards implementing projects under the PPP initiative.
The board’s head office will be in Dhaka, but the board can open branch offices anywhere in the country for its smooth operation.
The board can draw any project, apart from the Annual Development Programme, and implement that project under the PPP.
In Bangladesh the government introduced the PPP concept few years ago, which became popular in neighbouring India. The concept aimed to draw more foreign and private investment in the service-oriented sector.
The government allocated Tk3,000 crore in the current fiscal year’s budget. Presently, a total of 42 projects are being implemented under the PPP.
