By Henry Umoru

Twenty one companies out of the 53 that applied for the development of four districts in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja were last week unveiled by the Director, Federal Capital Territory on Public Private Partnership and Mass Housing, Engr Umar Jibril

The four Districts – Durumi, Kado, Mabushi and Gwarinmpa are to be provided with infrastructure by private companies under the Public Private Partnership arrangement.

Speaking at the opening of the bids, Jibril explained that a total of 53 companies collected bid forms but only 21 returned the completed forms for further processing.

Coordinator, Abuja Infrastructure Investment Company, Farouk Sanni told newsmen that the exercise has kick-started the process of providing district infrastructure through Public Private Partnership.

“ This administration, particularly the Minister of FCT is committed to implementing that aspect of Vision 2020. And that is the main reason why we have selected four districts to be developed on the PPP framework.”

Sanni who disclosed that the districts are places where allocations have been made and buildings erected, however observed that they lack primary infrastructure. “With the limited resources of government, FCT on its own cannot provide those infrastructure and that’s the main reason why we are partnering with the private sector to do that. And with the present policy thrust of the Federal government which places the private sector as the engine of growth and also with the policy thrust of the FCT administration we believe that we will attract the private sector,” he said.

The criteria for selecting the best firms to handle the project, he said, would be based on regulation on procurement, regulation on risk analysis and regulation for value for money in line with the regulations of Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).

“The Federal government has envisaged the participation of private sector in public infrastructure and for that reason it has created the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission. The Commission has been working assiduously on the regulation of national policy. Right now we have National Policy on PPP and then there are about three regulations which the ICRC has issued. Regulation on procurement, regulation on risk analysis and then regulation for value for money. We are going to use all these regulations in selecting competent investors for each of these districts,” he said.