LEGAZPI CITY—Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda is pushing for further refinements and reforms in the country’s Public-Private Partnership scheme through House Bill 788 he recently filed in Congress.
The measure will also help enable the government to fund up to P6.3 trillion worth of big-ticket infrastructure projects under President Duterte’s ambitious “Build, Build, Build” development program.
HB 788, titled PPP Rationalization Act, is designed to propel and accelerate the implementation of the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) 2017-2022, which listed big transport and industrial projects that are expected to usher in the golden era of Philippine infrastructure, and put the country at par with neighbors in the global economic race, said Salceda.
The proposed measure, he added, prescribed “clearer parameters on government undertakings“ and allow the “creation of a Risk Management Fund to ensure fiscal sustainability and enhance the ability of implementing agencies in the discharge of their mandates and contractual obligations.”
“It also seeks to provide the necessary ‘Investment Recovery Schemes’ within an allowable bracket that are ‘revenue-based,’ availability-based, and other non-monetary payments (e.g. commercial development rights, or the grant of a portion or percentage of the reclaimed land).”
HB 788 will set the “maximum allowable revenue/return at post-tax weighted average cost of capital based on comparable businesses using established methodologies, such as capital asset pricing model.
The reforms it seeks to introduce include clearer and simpler rules leading to faster decision points which are “time-bound and decision maker-specific procedures on Project Approval, reduce current project timetable of 30 months to 18 to 24 months, and increase the threshold amount of PPP projects to be approved.
