PPP board approves reorganization plan

THE Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center said its governing board approved a reorganization plan that will seek to strengthen its capacity to render technical assistance, evaluate projects, and oversee a growing number of PPP projects. The Center’s proposed optimization plan has been submitted to the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) for endorsement to the Committee on Optimizing the Executive Branch. “The PPP Center’s Optimization Plan combines digitalization, process streamlining, functional consolidation and specialization, resource reallocation, and workload-based staffing,” the PPP Center told BusinessWorld via Viber. “Its objective is not simply to increase organizational capacity, but to ensure that the capacity of the PPP Center is deployed in the right functions, through the right organizational arrangements, and at the level necessary to deliver the statutory PPP mandate efficiently, timely, responsively, and sustainably,” it added. The proposal considers the Center’s actual workload and evolving responsibilities nearly three years into the implementation of Republic Act No. 11966, or the PPP Code of the Philippines. It also seeks to ensure compliance with Republic Act No. 12231, or the Government Optimization Act, which requires agencies to review their organizational structures and operations. The plan was deliberated during a special hybrid meeting of the PPP Governing Board on Aug. 4, presided over by Economy Secretary and board Chairman Arsenio M. Balisacan. “It is designed to better equip the Center in providing technical assistance to implementing agencies, strengthen project evaluation and monitoring, enhance procurement advisory services, expand capacity-building initiatives, and support other core functions of the country’s PPP program,” DEPDev said. The PPP Center is monitoring a project pipeline consisting of 264 projects valued at P3.1 trillion as of Aug. 18, according to its project dashboard. Of the total, 213 government-initiated or solicited projects were valued at P1.97 trillion, while 51 private-sector-initiated or unsolicited projects were worth P1.13 trillion. The National Government is expected to implement 179 projects, while local government units will undertake the remaining 85. Forty projects are planned for the National Capital Region, 33 for Mimaropa — composed of Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan — and 32 for Central Luzon. The maritime and property development sectors had the most projects at 45 each, followed by the energy sector with 27. Railway projects accounted for P1.97 trillion, or nearly two-thirds of the total pipeline. These were followed by land transport projects valued at P300.7 billion and property development projects worth P221.14 billion. Some 240 projects remain under development. Seventeen are in the approval stage, while seven have reached procurement. The biggest projects in the pipeline include the P678.83-billion North Long Haul Inter-Regional Railway Project, the P229.32-billion North-South Commuter Railway Operations and Maintenance Project and the P130.9-billion Metro Rail Transit Line 7 Airport Access-North Line Project.   — Justine Irish D. Tabile