The State Department for Planning has proposed amendments to the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) act, 2013 to address existing gaps and woo investors into the country.
This follows concerns from various stakeholders which has seen the country lag behind in implementation of flagship projects under the act.
Planning Principal Secretary (PS) Torome Saitoti said his ministry was looking at the existing laws to make them friendly to investors.
Bureaucracy in government systems and rigidity of the existing laws, he said were some of the bottlenecks which the proposed amendments seek to address.
Once passed, the new law, he said is set to scale up the number of projects under PPP to help the country realize her development goals.
Speaking in Kisumu during a workshop on dissemination of a summary of key investment opportunities in Kenya booklet, the PS said through the Kenya Vision 2030 Third Medium Term Plan (MTP III), a number of projects at county and national level have been earmarked for implementation through public private partnerships.
“Implementation of the MTP III and the Big Four Agenda projects requires heavy financing that invites concerted efforts from government funding, development partners support, Public Private Partnerships (PPP) as well as through private sector engagement,” he said.
The PS expressed optimism that with the new law in place, the projects mapped out the MTP III (2018-2022) shall be implemented making Kenya a model country on Public Private Partnerships.
“These projects will help grow our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to spur economic growth and create job opportunities for the youth,” he said.
The Ministry, he said, has established a strong Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) department to keep track of government plans and projects to ensure they are fully implemented.
He challenged devolved units to come up with county specific projects based on their County Integrated Development Plans (CIDP’s) to achieve sustained economic growth as envisaged in the vision 2030.
The Covid-19 pandemic, he said negatively affected local investors slowing down the uptake of new investments.
The government, he added, is set to roll out several programmes and projects as outlined in the Post-Covid-19 Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS) to mitigate the adverse socio-economic effects of the pandemic and facilitate opening up of the economy.
The efforts, he said, target to accelerate economic recovery and attainment of higher and sustained economic growth.
“One of the ERS macroeconomic objectives is to increase investment to GDP ratio, from 13.1 percent in 2019/2020 to 17.2 percent in 2022/2023,” he said.
By Chris Mahandara/ Aphleen Dorothy
