A forum on private-public partnership was held in Colombo on Friday.
A number of dignitaries including the Governor of the Central Bank Indrajit Coomaraswamy, Minister of Finance Ravi Karunanayake and Minister of Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrama were present at the event.
Minister of Finance, Ravi Karunanayake, pointed out that in a rapidly changing global business environment, continuing with stable economic growth is a challenge.
“We have to look for more opportunities to realise our economic goals”, he said
He added that with the Sri Lankan population reaching 30 million earlier than predicted, there is a need to develop much needed facilities like housing, power, education, health, water, roads and transportation with that population growth, which leads to greater productivity, jobs and trade growth.
He explained that these economic goals can only be achieved with substantial development of infrastructure facilities, which is only possible through private investment, given the budget constraints being faced at the moment.
He noted that a number of projects have been recognised for the year 2017 budget to be implemented through the public-private partnership and this includes setting a national PPP policy, preparing national PPP Act, National PPP Regulations, National PPP Guidelines and a National PPP Unit.
He went on to note that massive sums of public funds were wasted awarding contracts on an unsolicited basis without following an open, competitive, transparent and accountable selection process during the previous regime.
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