Public Private Partnership Governance in Bangladesh: Functional and Legal Aspects

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Bangladesh is on track of becoming a middle-income country as its per capita income rose to US$1,314 this fiscal year. To attain and sustain the status of a middle income country by 2021, there is no alternative to raising the level of investment in the country. The sixth Five-Year Plan targeted 8% GDP growth rate by its terminal year. For this it would require the economy's total investment to grow from 26-27 % of GDP at present to 32.5 % by fiscal 2015. This is why, all-out efforts will, therefore, be needed to encourage private investment, enhance public investment and attract foreign direct investment. Experts and entrepreneurs highlight that infrastructural bottlenecks, shortage of power and gas, lack of investment and a shortage of industrial land in export processing zones are affecting the performance of the sector. Against this backdrop, p</em><em>ublic private partnership (PPP) might be one of the best alternatives for the government of Bangladesh to keep its achievement up. But newspaper reports reveal that despite budget allocation and assurance repeatedly made by the Finance Minister in his budget speeches, no remarkable achievements has yet been materialised in this sector. However, in the meantime as many as 43 projects have been adopted. But except Dhaka Elevated Expressway, no agreement has been signed due to lack of interest of private entrepreneurs. It might be said that this initiative could not be achieved fruitful results owing to functional clarity and legal limitations that could attract the private entrepreneurs to investment their money through PPP. Hence, this paper explores the limitations of functional perspicuity and legal issues related to this matter. To meet these objectives, it has been prepared mainly based on secondary data. For this, articles, government documents, donor documents, periodical reports, newspapers reports have been taken into account. Finally, it puts forward some policy propositions to boost up national development through PPP in Bangladesh. Among others, immediate enactment of PPP for legal safeguard, encouragement of private entrepreneurs without favor to someone, adoption in small scale projects, involving local NGOs, are notable ones.</em></p>

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