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| Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State and the Minister for Labour, Chris Ngige |
Cross Riverians, a new Chapter is opening. Our ideas and dreams are metamorphosing from idea generation, to idea manifestation, and now is time for the thoughts of Sustainability of these manifestations, which the Garment Factory, and all other great projects born out of the industrialisation dreams of Governor Ayade will depend.
What is P3?
Public–private partnership (PPP) describes a government service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies. These schemes are sometimes referred to as PPP, P3 or P3.
A public private partnership is a legally-binding contract between government and business for the provision of assets and the delivery of services that allocates responsibilities and business risks among the various partners. In a P3 arrangement, government remains actively involved throughout the project’s life cycle. The private sector is responsible for the more commercial functions such as project design, construction, finance and operations.
Given the huge amounts needed and the drive necessary for development, the government does not have the requisite capability to achieve this on its own and has thus among other options embarked upon the use of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), for infrastructure development and thus addressing the challenges constraining the growth of the economy.
The Federal Government of Nigerian has further established the Infrastructure concession regulatory commission through the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (Establishment, Etc) Act of 2005 (The ICRC Act) in this regard.
The ICRC Act therefore seeks to provide for the participation of the private sector in financing, construction, development, operation, and maintenance of Government infrastructure or development projects through concession or contractual arrangements.
The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and its Governing Board were then established to regulate, monitor, and supervise the concession and development projects. The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) is responsible for setting forth guidelines to promote, facilitate and ensure implementation of Public Private Partnership (PPP) Projects in Nigeria with the objective of achieving better value for money (vfM)for infrastructure services and enhanced economic growth.
Cross Riverians, we are a people carrying baskets of eggs on bad roads, with no insurance, and we have no money on our own to pay for damages.
A man came and encourage us to go through the bad road and agreed to pay for the damages that will occur given the impossibilities of going through these roads without breaking some of these eggs.
The man has shared in the risk involve, given us new hopes and charge our energy, vigor and vitality. He has bought over our fears and galvanise and sharpen our talents and skills.
The second fear in us appears; How can I sell this eggs, maintain my vehicle, pay tax, pay all bills and continue strong in this line of hope? How can I sustain this process given that many others have failed before me even when their conditions were better than mine?
What is the grantee of continuity given the change in government policies and programmes? This man came again and in the same manner said, just enter a contract with me and forget the rest in my hands. I will take responsibilities of the future changes based on the laws that establish our contract.
The eggs are our small percentage in Bonds, which on its own, can do us nothing. But that gave the P3 investor, confidence to take us through our needs with more capital. The P3 investor becomes our partner and get involve in the daily running and management of the venture. He has more money at stake so he run and manage the venture like his own through the open monitoring and supervisory regulatory body constituted by us.
Profit is share to us, taxes are paid to us, rents are paid to us, our children, Brothers and sisters, relatives are given jobs and our revenue expands by the monies these P3 investors invest into our economy. We enjoy these infrastructures and better our lives, economy and contribute to the world.
The Garment Factory, Superhighway, Deep Seaport, Calapharms, Calabar Rice City, Calabar Power Plant, etc. Are all running under the framework of P3. This is therefore, time to think about sustainability given the failed infrastructures in the past built, managed and operated by government alone.