Hon Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo

The potential of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) to create employment for poverty reduction has been underlined in recent global reports and in popular consensus for pro-poor PPP, Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, has noted.

Mr Ampofo said one of the core mandates of PPP was to assist, plan, finance and operate projects traditionally provided by government, adding that with PPP, local government had shifted its focus from being a supplier to a buyer of services.

The Minister was speaking at the opening of a workshop on Public-Private Partnership for Employment Creation in Accra, yesterday. The two-day workshop, organized by the Social Investment Fund (SIF) under the auspices of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, is aimed at complementing and reinforcing knowledge on Public-Private Partnership (PPP).

The workshop also aims at sharing experiences and lessons on how PPP initiatives have been implemented successfully in Ghana and outside Ghana to create employment in different sectors of the economy.

It is the second national intervention by the SIF to help key stakeholders in the Southern sector of Ghana to understand and value the dynamics between PPP and employment creation in infrastructure provision.

Mr Ampofo explained that PPP was a contractual arrangement between a public entity and private sector on shared objectives intended to provide public infrastructure and public services.

He said, however, that though government had financed MMDA’s infrastructural facilities and service delivery through direct budgetary support, demand for these services had always been high, outstripping supply, hence the need for the private sector and other non-state actors to provide resources, innovation and technical expertise to support infrastructure provision and service delivery.

He mentioned some key examples of MMDAs-PPP arrangements as the Government of Ghana-Zoom lion PPP Initiative for waste management delivery, Fee and Performance-Based PPP waste management service delivery being executed by AMA as well as the declining subsidy PPP waste management schemes being implemented in Kumasi and other Metropolitan and Municipal Assemblies.

These efforts, he said, had created employment for the youth and helped revamp MMDA’s obsolete equipment.

For his part, the Executive Director of SIF, Joe Acheampong, disclosed that the SIF had initiated a total of 241 intervention projects worth US$ 41 million in various parts of the country.

Mr Acheampong said the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) provided funds for the intervention projects which included the construction of water and waste management system, clinics, teachers and nurses quarters, hostels and schools located in Tema, Accra, Kumasi, Agogo, Wenchi, Sekondi-Takoradi, Ejisu, Apam and Swedru.

Source: ISD (Abigail Addo)

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