The Federal Government, through the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, has developed about 139 Public Private Partnership projects to be implemented by various agencies of government. The projects, which cover various sectors of the economy, are part of efforts aimed at reducing the level of infrastructure deficits in the country.
Details of the PPP projects, which are still at the pre-contract stage, were obtained by our correspondent from the ICRC on Wednesday. The projects cover areas such as health, trade and investment, water resources, transportation, power, works and housing, tourism and culture, mines and steel, agriculture, communication technology, housing, education, sports, and environment.
Based on an analysis of the PPP document, trade and investment has nine projects; water resources, 12 projects and transportation, 27 projects. Others are power, works and housing 12 projects; health, 13 projects; agriculture, one project; education, 10 projects; environment, two projects; defence, four projects and interior, eight projects.
Sectors such as communications, shipping, and youths and sports, among others, make up the balance of 41 projects. In the trade and investment sector, findings showed that the government is planning PPP arrangement in projects such as the development of a world-class training centre of excellence for the automotive sector, and development of mechanics’ villages.
The objective of the mechanics’ villages is to stimulate the growth and development of the mechanic business in a specialised and orderly manner. The project is aimed at developing the automotive value chain through the provision of six pilot modern mechanic villages in the nation’s six geopolitical zones. In the water resources sector, the Federal Government plans to concession the Gurara 2 Greenfield multi-purpose dam which includes 300 megawatts of hydropower components of the dam.
There is also a plan to concession the Owena multi-purpose dam water supply project, which will provide about 1.5kwh of electricity to the national grid. In the transportation sector, the government plans a PPP for the Ibom Deep Sea Port Project, which involves the development of a Greenfield Deep-sea Port and accompanying Free Trade Zone in Akwa Ibom State.
The proposed port and FTZ are part of the proposed Ibom Industrial City initiative that will be established on a 14,400-hectare site donated by the Akwa Ibom State Government. The IDSP project is intended to become a major national and regional economic gateway that would provide additional container handling capacity for the country.
In addition to containers, the IDSP is expected to handle petroleum products (export and import), crude oil and natural gas (export), vehicles (import) and bulk trade in natural resources (import and export). The Director-General, ICRC, Chidi Izuwah, had said that between 2010 and 2018, the Federal Government gave approval to PPP projects worth about $8bn.
He said the ICRC had held series of strategic meetings with stakeholders in the PPP ecosystem to address the common challenges of PPP projects. This, he stated, would serve as a catalyst for growth in the use of PPP as a preferred procurement option across the states of the federation. Izuwah said as of June 25 2019, there were 69 post-contract PPP projects under implementation at the ICRC Projects Disclosure Portal. He said as of October 31, 2019, there were 139 pre-contract projects at development and procurement phases.
https://punchng.com/fg-develops-139-ppp-projects-seeks-investors/
