The present government has disbanded Sri Lanka’s National Agency for Public-Private Partnership (NAPPP) operated as a unit of the Ministry of Finance with World Bank assistance.
The NAPP headed by Thilan Wijesinghe, former Board of Investment Chairman and business professional with 20 member staff, will be wound up after over two years in existence, official sources said.
According to the cabinet paper presented by Prime Minister and Finance Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa this unit is no longer necessary since the government is taking action to streamline its activities and consolidate functions.
The cabinet has approved the proposal recently to close down the operations of the agency established by the previous regime in 2017 to fast-track Sri Lanka’s economic development agenda.
The World Bank had financed the provision of recommendations and carrying out of capacity-building activities on the PPP legal and regulatory framework including on PPP-related guidelines.
It has also funded the organisational structure of the NAPPP, its staffing and knowledge building and management, and the development of tools for the prioritisation of possible PPP transactions and for the assessment of their level of readiness.
The total commitment of the World Bank facility was around US$25 million for the whole project and out of it a sum of $0.29 million had been disbursed last year and the allocation for this year is $2.94 million, official data revealed.
Its ‘Project Development Objective’ was to support the preparation of Public-Private Partnerships that will enable the Government of Sri Lanka to facilitate private sector financing for the development of its priority infrastructure and services.
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