Public Private Partnerships of Ghana

PPPs

Ghana’s infrastructure and services were largely public funded up until the year 2000. After reaching economic crisis in the 1980s, the government adopted the World Bank-advocated Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), lessening its social service provision.
Public-private partnerships are now seen by the government as a vital means of funding present infrastructural requirements with a view to becoming a middle income country and reducing poverty.
The National Development Planning Commission estimates that Ghana needs an annual capital investment of US$1.5 billion for infrastructural development over the coming decade.

In 2010, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning founded the Ghana PPP Advisory body to lead public-private endeavours. Subsequently, in March 2012, Ghana was approved an interest free credit of $30 million by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors to instigate PPP initiatives from 2012-16 in areas that would otherwise be stalled by Ghana’s funding gap. The 2014 budget established a dedicated infrastructure fund into which proceeds from the 2.5 per cent value added tax would be routed. The government has worked closely with the World Bank and the Department for International Development to prepare its legislative, institutional, financial and fiduciary landscape for the full potential of PPP. The areas immediately designated by the government for PPP development are air, rail and road transportation, as well as health and water systems. Facilitation of the country’s rapid industrialisation is a principal aim in order to capitalise on exportation to countries in the north, as well as providing transport for international trade. Longer-term priorities for PPP development include improving the agricultural, ICT, housing, municipal and judicial infrastructure. PPPs in Ghana currently trail behind other Sub-Saharan African countries