New act tipped to speed up projects

They shared their ideas at a seminar last week held by the Office of the Attorney-General.
Attorney-General Chulasingh Vasantasingh said the new PPP Act, which has been in effect since April 3, was designed to speed up the processing of public-private cooperative contracts. It replaces the PPP Act that been in force since 1992.
The new act provides that the period between the winning of a government tender and the signing of the contract must not exceed 180 days, he said. The old act set no limit.
He added that the new act also included articles supporting public-private joint ventures for national infrastructure projects.
One of these provisions is |the establishment of a committee for five-year strategic development plans presided over by the prime minister. The committee will decide on the type of investment that falls under the PPP |Act. The committee will have 17 members led by the PM, with |the finance minister as vice chairman, and the rest comprising state-agency representatives and other experts. This will be set up after the act’s subordinate laws are in place; 16 of these are being drafted and must be completed within 180 days of the main act coming into effect, that is, by October 3.
One of the subordinate laws will define the scope of the project value. According to Chulasingh, the project value should be calculated from its capital and should not include expected income after the project starts operating. The previous PPP law did not have this clear definition.
The new act will also have a process to manage PPP projects costing less than Bt1 billion. Previously, projects worth less than that amount did not fall under the 1992 PPP Act.
The new act also allows state agencies that initiate projects to set up subcommittees to take responsibility for them. This should speed up the development of projects, as under the previous law state agencies had to submit their projects for examination first by the National Economic and Social Development Board.
The new act also sets procedures for what happens after expiry of a public-private contract, which now must include a clause on whether the original private partner can renew the contract of it has to go up for tender again.
Dr Seree Nothasoot, senior executive vice president of the Institute of Research and Development for Public Enterprises, said the new act also ensured transparency. It determines that members of a state subcommittee considering qualifications of companies bidding to join a project cannot become a board director of the company winning the bid for three years after his or her resignation from the subcommittee.
Since the old PPP Act came into force in 1992, only 40 projects were developed under the act, 33 between the private sector and national state agencies and seven with provincial authorities.