Infrastructure Development, key on gov’t agenda - Terkper

Seth Terkper, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, on Tuesday said government recognised infrastructure development as a key ingredient in its development agenda.

“Our efforts at achieving production efficiency, reliability and competitiveness will not achieve much if we do not expand up-date and modernise our national social and economic infrastructure," he said.

The minister said this when he presented the 2013 national budget to parliament in Accra.

Mr Terkper said the World Bank estimated that the country faces an infrastructural funding gap of about 1.5 billion dollars per annum consistently for at least the next ten years.

He said that funding deficit undermined efforts at ensuring sufficient and efficient infrastructure delivery that was required to harness the potential of the private and public sectors to grow and diversify the economy and create employment opportunities.

He announced that a national infrastructure plan was being finalised to align key components of the economic expansion with optimum access to needed infrastructure.

“In order to maximise private financing to reduce the infrastructure gap, it is the expectation of government that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) undertaking investment projects will do so within the framework of the Public Investment Plan (PIP); and use a more diversified financing space provided through the Public Private Partnership (PPP) option,” he added.

Mr Terkper said as part of government‘s efforts to involve the private sector in public infrastructure and service delivery through PPP, a national policy on PPPs had been designed and launched.

The policy, he said, expected that all PPPs should have the core values of sustainability, acceptability to the demands of accelerated national development and value-for-money in terms of timely, better and enhanced delivery of the project.

“Government is currently developing a PPP law that will be introduced soon before this august House for consideration. The policy document and legislative framework will complement other institutional, financial and operational framework to address the key binding constraints.

“On sustaining Confidence in the Future of the Ghanaian Economy in the current enabling environment for PPP in Ghana, His Excellency, the President the chair of the Private Sector Advisory Council, and has relocated the Private Sector Development Secretariat directly under the Presidency to enable optimum facilitation of activities relating to private sector development using the authority of his high office,” he said.