The federal government says it will conduct an audit of all public-private partnership (PPP) projects to examine their performance.
The audit will ensure these projects are insured, as required by the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission Establishment Act, 2005.
News About Nigeria reports that this is contained in a statement signed by Mr. Ifeanyi Nwoko, Acting Head of Media and Publicity, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), on Wednesday in Abuja.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, Minister of Interior, ICRC director-general, Dr. Jobson Ewalefoh, said the commission will train PPP desk officers in Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs), as it was already in the works.
“Talking about the audit, we are already putting in place a mechanism to start auditing the performance of PPP agreements that we have signed in the past,” he said.
“We do not want to condemn or terminate them, but we want to optimise them.
“When it comes to the issue of insurance, of course, it is a matter of law for all national assets, both hard and soft infrastructure, that are concessioned through PPP to be insured.
“That is one area we are going to look into very soon. We are going to issue a policy that all assets under PPP must, in compliance with the law, be insured.”
The ICRC DG noted that in the past year of the current administration, the minister had taken the highest number of PPP projects to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) for approval.
He praised him for not moving to cancel any PPP but rather optimising those that were stalling.
“My people just did a sum of the total amount of investment that has come into this ministry in your time as a minister in the last year and it is over five hundred million dollars.
“So, we cannot thank you enough as a champion of PPP.
“Therefore, we felt it was in our interest to come and say thank you for being our PPP Ambassador and a PPP Champion.
“We are using this opportunity to tell the world that the government of President Bola Tinubu has respect for the sanctity of contracts and to tell investors that their investment is safe,” he said.
