TAGAYTAY CITY, Cavite, March 5 (PNA) — The Philippines must develop a credible and independent regulatory regime to attract the private sector to invest in major public- private partnership (PPP) projects, a foreign PPP expert said on Wednesday.
Chairman of the 2015 Asia-Pacific Infrastructure Partnership (APIP) Dialogue, Mark Johnson, was responding to a question on the nature of the regulatory framework in the Philippines during a press conference held at the Summit Ridge Hotel here.
Johnson said he does not have detailed knowledge of the regulatory set-up in the Philippines but having one is a universal requirement to entice private investments in PPP projects.
“Any economy, anybody who wants to foster the development of PPP must have in place regulatory structures to deal with issues of pricing and taxes, and everybody got to believe it,” he said.
“Not only (does) this regulatory authority deal with things competently but it should continue to do that over the life of the project.”
Such regularity regime, he added, must also be independent to avoid conflict of interest because this discourages private sector participation.
For instance, in the Philippines, a concern was raised during the APIP discussion regarding a local regulator that also functions as an operator, Johnson said, noting this situation is not acceptable to private companies.
“That is seen to represent conflict of interest that would probably be not acceptable to private investors,” he said.
The government is about to roll out five more PPP projects in addition to 11 projects that are currently up for grabs, PPP Center Executive Director Cosette Canilao said on Wednesday.
She reported that the Philippines has 61 PPP projects in the pipeline, nine of which have already been awarded.
These nine PPP projects were awarded during the Aquino administration, exceeding the past three administrations’ solicited PPP projects. (PNA)