Government to bring back National Agency for PPP

• Allocates Rs.250mn to set up agency
• National Agency for PPP was disbanded by Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration 

The National Agency for Public Private Partnership (NAPPP) which was discontinued about two years ago is to be re-established by the current government as per the interim budget 2022.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe while presenting the interim budget as the Minister of Finance in parliament yesterday said that a national agency will be established for the purpose of identifying and facilitating investment to be undertaken in partnership with the public and private sectors. 

A sum of Rs.250 million has been allocated for the implementation of the agency. It is unclear if the scope and mandate of the yet-to-be-established agency is similar to that of the NAPPP which had former Board of Investment (BOI) Chairman Thilan Wijesinghe as its chief. President Wickremesinghe did not elaborate on the details of the agency.  The National Agency for Public-Private Partnership was set up via a proposal made by former Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera. The objective of the agency was to operate as an independent institution with adequate legal, administrative and financial powers, instead of the Public-Private Partnership Division which functioned at the Finance Ministry. It was one of the two units that was disbanded when Gotabaya Rajapaksa came to power.  The NAPPP operated as a unit of the Ministry of Finance that functioned with World Bank (WB) assistance.  The World Bank back then committed a sum of US$ 25 million to the agency.