THE PUBLIC-PRIVATE Partnership (PPP) Center signed an agreement with a group of local government units (LGUs) last Tuesday in a bid to help them formulate projects.
In a statement, the agency said PPP Center Executive Director Ferdinand A. Pecson and the League of Cities of the Philippines (LCP), represented by its National President, Angeles City Mayor Edgardo D. Pamintuan, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), part of its bid to boost its LGU PPP strategy.
According to the MoU, under the agreement, the PPP Center will provide “advisory services, technical assistance, and capacity development to LGUs in developing well-structured and viable PPP projects.”
The PPP Center said the MoU with the LGUs is part of a larger project being undertaken by the agency to establish a Protocol for Stakeholder Engagement for Local PPP Projects, part of which is a consultation mechanism based on target stakeholders, specifically from the SOCCSKSARGEN region in Mindanao involved in various local PPP projects.
The stakeholder consultation will be held on Aug. 1 in General Santos.
Mr. Pecson said the consultation will encourage the LGUs to pursue private concessions in implementing their projects.
“PPP is one of the pillars of the administration’s infrastructure strategy. What we need to do is to come up with more projects from LGUs through the PPP route,” said Mr. Pecson in a statement.
The consultation will start with a stakeholder identification pre-workshop, which will serve as the preparatory activity for the consultation process, and will be followed by a consultation survey for the LGUs.
“We welcome this collaboration between the PPP Center and the League of Cities of the Philippines as our partners in PPPs,” Mr. Pecson said. “The PPP Center is very much behind the League of Cities in their pursuit of development through infrastructure projects, specifically through PPPs. The upcoming consultation will further boost this partnership.” — EJCT
