Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) remain the most viable solution to address the African infrastructure funding gap currently estimated at anything between $68 and $108 billion.According to David Baxter, steering committee member of the World Association of PPP Units & Professionals, despite the lack of operational maturity around PPPs, several countries on the continent have proved their success.“South Africa, Morocco, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and Ghana dominate the PPP market at present on the continent and have very robust programmes in place. There is no doubt that when they’re undertaken and procured competitively and transparently, PPPs are an efficient tool to leverage countries’ ability to achieve their sustainable development goals.”There were, however, several challenges still to overcome around PPPs, as pointed out by The Economist Business Unit’s recent Infroscope Report which highlighted that while there were several laws guiding PPPs, implementation was still lagging. “There is clearly a need for the harmonisation of implementation and broader stakeholder engagement is needed,” said Baxter during an online ABiQ conference. “Leveraging the innovation and financial resources of both the public and private sectors is necessary at this stage to deal with infrastructure requirements.”According to the African Development Bank, African countries need to invest between $130 and $170 billion by 2025 if they want to meet their present and future infrastructure requirements.According to Baxter, PPPs were evolving and being adapted to deal with the challenges around them.“Covid has sharpened the need for structured projects that address value for money, value for people and value for the future. PPPs have real potential in Africa.”He said examples of successful PPs included the Henri Konan Bedie Bridge in Cote d’Ivoire, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project in Kenya, Senegal’s Dakar-Diamniadio Road, power and water projects in Ghana, Nigeria and Rwanda, and the Tanger-Med port project in Morocco.According to Baxter, various governments across Africa were realising the potential of PPPs and Kenya, for example, had introduced PPP units tasked with aggressively working on promoting PPPs.Chris Kirigua, director general PPP for the government of Kenya, said challenges in the PPP environment were very real, including managing the perception that existed about these partnerships.“Risk management as well as balancing the risk between the private and public sector has been a real challenge in the establishment of PPPs, not to mention endless contract negotiations.”He said the development of a specialised PPP unit in the government of Kenya had gone a long way to addressing many of the risks and significant progress had been made.“Some of the progress we have made includes several successful PPPs in the power sector,” said Kirigua. “Within the past few months we have closed four deals and we have another 15 in the pipeline on the verge of commercial close.”One of the most important developments, he said, was reviewing the law to ensure it was fit for purpose. “We realised the changes were quite extensive and this led to us doing a complete repeal of the law, which we did within a month, and Kenya now has a new law in place guiding PPPs. It was passed earlier this year and brings significant changes, making it a far friendlier environment for investors.”He said one of the most significant changes introduced was that of a specific timeline that by law now holds the government responsible to get back to investors. “When I took on this job there was no timeline and there were issues of over a year old. We have now established a timeline for government to get back to investors and it is clearly defined in the law.”
