The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has approved the new guidelines on the reviewing and approval of national Public-Private Partnership (PPP) proposals.
The NEDA board, chaired by President Marcos, has agreed to the new guidelines of the Investment Coordination Committee (ICC) that will streamline the approval process of PPP projects.
Under the new guidelines, the ICC approval for projects costing P15 billion and above is expected to be completed within 113 calendar days, with a maximum limit of 120 calendar days.
Meanwhile, for projects that are below P15 billion, ICC approvals should be completed in 83 to 90 days, with a possible extension of up to 120 days.
The approved ICC guidelines will be effective immediately once published on the websites of NEDA, the Department of Finance, and the PPP Center.
"With the right policies and enabling investment ecosystem, we hope our partners from the private sector can join us in the crucial task of nation-building as we continue on our journey toward a Bagong Pilipinas," NEDA Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan stated.
During the signing of the PPP Code’s Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) last month, Balisacan said that PPP projects costing below P15 billion can now be approved by the head of the implementing agency and shall not go through the NEDA board anymore.
“But if they require some form of subsidy like right-of-way, access to availability payments, then they will have the still to go to the NEDA ICC, the ICC can soon stop there. It will no longer go all the way to the president,” he said.
“So that in a sense, it can also diminish the number of PPP projects going to the NEDA Board, and that's part of the streamlining that we are pushing for,” he added.
The ICC, wherein the NEDA chief serves as co-chair, evaluates the fiscal, monetary and balance of payments implications of major national projects, and recommends to the timetable of their implementation.
There are 119 PPP projects currently in the pipeline, with 95 at the national level and 24 at the local level, which are all worth about P2.4 trillion.