The cabinet today approved in principle the draft of “The Bangladesh Public-Private Partnership (PPP) (amendment) Law, 2019” keeping a provision of undertaking and implementing the G2G (government to government) projects in the existing act, reports BSS.
The approval came from the weekly cabinet meeting held at Bangladesh Secretariat here this afternoon with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam briefed reporters.
He said “The Bangladesh Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Act, 2015” was framed to create a partnership with private sector by attracting local and foreign investment aimed at improving living standard of the people and expediting the country’s socioeconomic progress as well as building infrastructures.
“Under the existing law there was no provision about the G2G schemes. But after the introduction of the PPP Act, 2015 the government took initiatives for execution of the PPP projects (G2G PPP) with various countries,” the cabinet secretary said.
He said memorandums/cooperation of understanding have already been signed with Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Dubai under the “Policy for Implementing PPP Projects through Government to Government (G2G)” and other counties have also shown their interest to undertake schemes in this process.
“Against this backdrop, the sub-sections 2 (6 Ka), 13 (3) and 13 (4) have been incorporated in the Section 8 of the proposed law for inclusion of the issue of undertaking and implementation of the G2G projects,” Islam said.
The cabinet secretary said the proposed law has also kept a provision of holding one meeting of the Board of Governors instead of six a year. The proposal has been made as arrangement of six meetings in a year is time consuming and it is not possible due to busyness of the members, including the chairman of the Board of Governors, he said.
Islam said the executive board of the authority was formed in the maiden meeting of Board of Governors of the PPP Authority. In the proposed law, the issues related to the size of the board, its responsibilities and meetings have been included, he said.
The cabinet secretary said in the organogram of the PPP Authority, there is a provision of contractual appointment in different posts of the PPP Authority.
Under the section 11 of the existing law, it has been mentioned that the service conditions of the employees appointed directly will be determined by the provisions, he said. Islam said to add separate provisions to the case of the persons appointed in the PPP Authority on contractual basis, a proposal has been made to amend the section 11 of the existing law.
As a result, the issue of enforcement of the guidelines or provisions approved by the Board of Governors has been incorporated in the proposed law, he said.
Besides, he said, some clauses have also been incorporated in the amended law for taking opinions and help from the PPP Authority on the issues of monitoring after the partnership agreement with the PPP Authority. The cabinet secretary said at the outset of the meeting, the cabinet adopted an obituary reference at the death of noted parliamentarian and valiant freedom fighter Moinuddin Khan Badal.
