World Bank to Support Regulatory Commission’s Disclosure Project

The World Bank says it will provide the required technical support to ensure the implementation of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission’s (ICRC) disclosure projects.

Ms Shynama Shukla, the bank Senior Public Private Partnership (PPP) Specialist, disclosed this during ICRC Contract Disclosure Forum on Friday in Abuja.

Shukla said that the bank was already providing technical assistance to strengthen PPP projects in Nigeria through some other projects and would continue to do so.

“The ICRC feels that there is the need for the disclosure framework given that Nigeria has been doing a lot of PPPs.”

“There are a lot of stakeholders on the PPP projects and unless more information goes out into the public domain, stakeholders, especially investors may not have the level of comfort required.”

“Because if you want to invest in a particular project, you will want a level of comfort that all the procedures have been followed and all the activities have been done by the MDAs as well as ICRC.”

“You will also want to ensure that the investment is transparent and conducive.”

“And because of that ICRC feels that there should be disclosure framework and they approached us because we work a lot in those areas with different countries.”

Earlier, the Director-General, ICRC, Mr Aminu Diko, said that the disclosure was important to ensure transparency and accountability in the way public sector services were provided in the country.

Diko, represented by Mr Chidi Izuwah, the Executive Director Support Service, ICRC, said the ICRC as an institution of government had the obligation to support the anti-corruption fight of the present administration.

He said that the commission would ensure this through making public some salient information on PPP contracts executed by MDAs on behalf of the Federal Government.

He said that the World Bank had created a draft framework for disclosure in PPP, which suggested a systematic structure for disclosing information proactively at PPP transactions.

Diko said that the commission in collaborated with the World Bank would develop a guideline for disclosure of PPP post on contract information being used to populate about 51 PPP contracts in ICRC’s database.

He said that it was essential for Nigeria to meet international best practice by customising the existing PPP post-contract disclosure framework to capture the pre-contract disclosure components.

According to him, this will ensure that the life cycle of a project from development phase to implementation is disclosed to the public.

He urged the public to study the disclosed PPP contracts information vis-a-vis the implementation of the different projects and revert to the commission where necessary for improved monitoring and compliance.

Diko said that the commission was working at ensuring that it did everything within its power to ensure that government’s efforts toward bridging the infrastructure gap in the economy were achieved.

NAN