Staff
Correspondent: Dhaka, Jul-29,
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has admitted that the idea of public-private partnership (PPP) has failed to meet the expectation.
“Actually, we could not sell the PPP idea properly.
But now work has started. We have to give the time... Still we’ve been facing
that teething problem”, he told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Thursday.
The Cabinet committee in principle decided to drop a
project “Construction of Laldia Bulk Terminal” from the government’s PPP list.
Now, the Chattagram Port Authority (CPA) will implement the project by its own
fund.
Earlier, there was decision to implement the project
through PPP by the CPA on 59.87 acres of land at Laldia Char area on the right
bank of the Karnaphuli River.
Kamal said the government believes it would overcome
the problems facing with the PPP.
He said now the government has been implementing
projects by its own fund as there is no shortage of money.
“We need foreign direct investment under PPP....the
more FDI attraction means the more benefits”, he said.
“But we could not attract DFI as we didn’t have
adequate infrastructures”, he said adding, infrastructures mean physical and
non-physical both.
The finance minister said the government believes
that as the country is having infrastructures, there will be no problem in
attracting FDI and PPP projects.
Responding to another question, he said that he
would try to find out if money from the government’s stimulus package was
diverted to the country’s stock market as reported by media.
“I would inform you after my own finding whether the
allegation is true or not. But so far the fund from stimulus package is not
supposed to go elsewhere is it was provided to eligible beneficiaries from
specific targeted sectors.
Meanwhile, the CCEA approved a proposal of the
Ministry of Liberation War to award the contract to an event management company
through direct procurement method without tender process to arrange the
concluding programmers of the golden jubilee of the independence celebration with
due manner to showcase the country at home and abroad.
It also approved another proposal to purchase Oracle
Cloud for the Bangladesh Data Centre Company Limited through direct procurement
method.
End/Dct/Aia/Sma/
