Government says plans are under way to create a database for all Private Public Partnership (PPP) projects across the country.
Deputy Director for the National Policy and Programme Implementation Department (NPPID) in the Ministry of Finance, Ngoza Munthali, says setting up of a databank will not only promote transparency in the implementation of PPP projects but ensure efficiency as well.
Ms Munthali said every project will have among other things an identification number which would be accessible at a central point.
Ms Munthali added that the databases will also avail information on the name, sector, region, funding, estimated cost, completion time, and status of the project which would be readily available for the public.
“The challenge has been lack of a database that’s how come we are developing a central database so we can keep tabs on projects across the country,” she said
Ms Munthali was speaking in Mufumbwe during a sensitization meeting aimed at highlighting Public Private Partnership policies and procedures of the Ministry of Finance and National Planning.
The Deputy Director for the National Policy and Programme Implementation Department has since called on districts and their administrations to identify projects for which government and stakeholders could implement in their districts.
Ms Ngoza said people on the ground have a huge role to play in the development of projects that government ends up implementing.
But Mufumbwe District Commissioner (DC) , Mankishi Mukokwe, said government should hasten implementation of the decentralisation policy to secure involvement of people at the grassroots.
Ms Mukokwe said government needs to ensure that development of projects is scaled down to districts to promote efficiency and participation.
Ms Mukokwe said once projects are developed from the grassroots they stand a better chance of being successful due to people’s perceived entitlement to them.
The Mufumbwe District Commissioner said people adequately apply themselves towards projects they know and understand and see to it that they are completed.
“We have many projects and ideas that we do and identify locally but they often take too long to materialise because everything is centrally done. If the process was cut short we would be more efficient in implementing projects as a country,” she said.
Meanwhile, Mufumbwe District Council Secretary Alisinda Nawa, said lack of information on PPP procedures remains a huge challenge for councils in the province.
Mr Nawa said it would be important for the Ministry of Finance to provide councils with information on the right procedures to use to undertake projects in the district.
Mr Nawa alluded that this would help not only the council to generate income but also create the much needed employment opportunities in Mufumbwe
“Mufumbwe lacks information on how we can correctly undertake some projects without necessarily overstepping our jurisdiction. So we need to have information to be scaled down to us so that we can quicken the process of implementing projects we develop ourselves.
“We want to do more to complement government’s efforts through small projects like stone crushing and farming but the procedures to get clearance and things like that retards our efforts,” he said.
THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. THIS IS BEING PROGRESSIVE. CAPTURING A CENTRAL DATA BASE FOR ALL PROJECTS IN THE COUNTRY FOR EASY AND EFFECTIVE MONITORING IS BRILLIANT. I LIKE IT. I BELIEVE MANY OTHER ZAMBIANS ARE ATTRACTED TO THE IDEA.
Good idea and i know the new shopping mall at UNZA is an example of a PPP project. well done
Its not a hard thing to do a simple excel spread sheet with linked attachements. Its not newsworthy at all. just do your job instead of rushing to the media to announce that we a going to make a spread sheet. Yaaak…
A good distributed system will do the trick. Holler if you need help.
Solve the current problems of youth unemployment and stalled projects first! Maybe you need to create a database of on-going government projects, like who won what tender, when, progress to date, etc. etc….