BOTSWANA IS SEEKING INVESTORS FOR PPP PROJECTS

While the government has had a PPP policy and framework in place since June 2009, few significant projects have taken place in the intervening years, meaning the dominant funding for major public works has remained the government balance sheet.

The Finance and Economic Development ministry last week published a list of 16 PPP projects it said it would focus on, noting that some were at the procurement of consultant stage while two were set to identify a private partner.

On Wednesday, Finance minister, Thapelo Matsheka told BusinessWeek the idea was to get projects started and moving to reinvigorate the economy.

“We just about lost 2020 as a planning or financial year because of COVID-19 and what is going to be important is to frontload more of these projects,” he said. “That’s the only way to kickstart the economy. “We want a multiplicity of projects away from the financial years so that they can run concurrently and we have a limited time till the end of NDP 11 in 2023. “We have to adopt a different approach.”

Matsheka said fast-tracking the PPPs would also move some of the technical costs off government’s balance sheet by engaging private sector capital and expertise. He said the PPP thrust is also to empower the private sector by engaging it in major public works.

Source: Mmegi Online