BAHAMIAN PRIME MINISTER PERRY CHRISTIE says the toughness of the economic conditions facing several Caribbean countries means the private sector will have to play an even greater role going forward.
Christie was the featured speaker at a lunchtime presentation during the recently held CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank’s Public Private Partnerships In Infrastructure Development Conference at the Atlantis Hotel in The Bahamas.
According to Christie, “As the seismic economic and financial crisis has gripped the world economy over the last several years, our small developing nation is confronted with daunting economic and social challenges that . . . call for new and innovative ideas and ways of doing things.”
He noted that while the government “must necessarily play a pivotal role going forward, I do believe that there is a critical need for involvement of the private sector in the further development of our economy and society”.
The Bahamian leader said that in practice around the world, public private sector partnerships (PPPs) were extremely complex and they varied widely in structure and mode of operation.
Christie pointed out that “Governments have also turned increasingly to PPPs as a means of maintaining much needed levels of public infrastructure investment in the face of challenging deficit and debt conditions.
“Through the implementation of PPPs, the financing needs of projects appear on private sector balance sheets rather than those of the government.”
He told the gathering that The Bahamas had undertaken a number of PPPs and the main reason that government would contemplate such arrangements was that they offered the possibility of an improvement in value-for-money for the Government.
“This is achieved through the transfer of risks to the private sector where it is best placed to assess and handle those risks. The improved value-for-money is also secured by the fact that, where it is private sector capital that is employed and at risk, the economically efficient planning and operational decisions are made,” he noted. (GE)
