Public-private partnership is crucial to improve public services, says PM

Maputo 5 Jul (AIM) – Mozambican Prime Minister Adriano Maleiane believes that Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are crucial in order to increase the state’s capacity to intervene in the provision, improvement and expansion of public services.

According to Maleiane, who was speaking, on Thursday, in Maputo, at the First Conference on Public-Private Partnerships, which is being held under the slogan “Promoting Investments for Economic Transformation”, the partnership between the public and private sectors must be based on the principle of mutual benefits for both parties, as “it also allows the state to collect more revenue in the form of dividends, taxes and fees.”

“It is within this legal framework that the government has been establishing PPPs to carry out major works and projects, especially in the areas of infrastructure, transport and communications, agriculture throughout its value chain, energy, and industry, to make various structuring initiatives in our economy viable”, he said.

According to Maleiane, despite the progress made in the process of contracting, implementing and monitoring PPP projects, the government acknowledges the need for further improvement.

“We hope that concrete suggestions and proposals will be presented to improve the PPP model with regard to mega-projects, business concessions and investments in various areas”, he said.

For his part, the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Business & Legal Magazine, José Caldeira, pointed out that the country has a lot of information for doing business, but it is dispersed, and therefore it is necessary to have more public debates.

“This information includes market access opportunities, programmes, and initiatives to support the private sector, economic legislation, trade treaties, bilateral and multilateral agreements. The challenge of accessing information prevails in a scenario where the economy shows great potential for investment in the oil and gas sectors, as well as in agribusiness, industry and tourism”, Caldeira said.

Over the last 10 years, he said, the government has taken significant steps in the process of economic reforms, but their impact is still quite small due to poor implementation.

“Poor implementation is due, on the one hand, to the lack of knowledge of the legislation on the part of state employees and, on the other, the lack of knowledge on the part of economic agents, a fact that led to the creation of Business & Legal Magazine in June 2023”, he said.

Therefore, Caldeira said, the legal magazine aims at guiding the business people on legal issues in order to improve the business environment in Mozambique.

(AIM)

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