Gov’t lacks legal, technical expertise on PPP, says Neri Written by Tribune Thursday, 04 July 2013 08:00 Former National Economic and Development Authority director general and Budget Secretary Romulo Neri said yesterday the Aquino government is lacking in legal, financial and technical expertise that’s why its public-private partnership (PPP) project remains a dream. In an exclusive interview, Neri, a former Asian Institute of Management senior professor, said the PPP is a very complex contractual arrangement that all implementors might be attracting serious legal suits for just a simple misstep. “It needs multiple expertise in legal, financial and technical aspects. Government would not have all of these. That’s why bureaucrats tend to be cautious and afraid they make mistakes that could lead to cases against them,” Neri, who also served as Social Security System president, explained to the Daily Tribune in a very exclusive interview. He said implementing a PPP project is entirely different when utilizing an official development assistance (Oda) fund in building any infrastructure project as the first is very complex form of business arrangement with any private sector. So far, none of the 10 big ticket projects peddled by President Aquino during his first state of the nation address (Sona) in July 2010 has been built. The president is set to deliver his fourth Sona on July 22 without any of the PPP projects he mentioned completed. It has already built the cheapest of the 10 projects, the three-kilometer Slex-Daang Hari extension, but the original proponent of the project, the Philippine National Construction Corp., is charging the government for the work it done. “It was faster to implement infra before under World Bank and Japanese financing because of lesser complexity versus PPP. But with excess liquidity and financial reserves in our system, no more need for Oda” the former technocrat added. Neri said nobody can blame the current administration if it it thinks that the PPP is a perfect alternative to build public infrastructure in partnership with the private sector. Since the PPP is very hard to implement because of the legal suits any implementor might be facing, Neri said “government bureaucrats tend to be extra cautious.” “They don’t get rewarded for success but get punished for slight missteps. PPP is a more complex arrangement with many potential legal and contractual pitfalls,” he added.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 11:54:33 +0000
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