The Cabinet Economic Affairs Committee approved 'in principle' Sunday an offer of the Malaysian government to construct 8,400 residential flats for the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), the capital development authority, reports UNB.
The committee at a meeting with Finance Minister AMA Muhith in the chair approved the proposal from Kuala Lumpur (KL) with some recommendations.
This was stated by Cabinet Division's joint secretary Mustafizur Rahman while briefing newsmen about the proceedings of the meeting.
He, however, did not give any details of the recommendations.
Apart from that, the cabinet body also approved six proposals including 400MW Bibiyana South power plant and a new provision for entertaining any unsolicited offer from the private sector to implement different projects under public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement.
However, the Malaysian government has offered to construct the flats under a government-to-government (G-to-G) arrangement on the design-build-transfer (DBT) basis.
To this effect, Rajuk and the Malaysian authority already signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in April last.
After the Cabinet Purchase body's approval, Rajuk will sign the final agreement with the Malaysian authority for implementing the project.
As per the proposal, the Malaysian government will construct a total of 100 multistoried buildings at B and C blocks under the Uttara Residential Model Town. Each of the buildings will be 16-storey having 84 flats.
The cabinet body also gave its nod to the proposal placed by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) for introducing the new provision on PPP projects.
The PPP Office, under the PMO, prepared the proposal titled 'The Procedure for Implementation of PPP Policy and Strategy for Unsolicited Proposals 2014'.
The proposed new provision includes two systems -- Bonus System and Swiss Challenge System -- for entertaining any private party's unsolicited offer for PPP projects.
In the Bonus System, the proponent of the unsolicited proposal is given bonus points in relation to its evaluation while the Swiss Challenge System enables the government to attract a counter proposal
on an unsolicited proposal during a particular period. The original proponent then has the right to counter-match the most attractive counterproposal.
The government has been struggling for long to implement various infrastructure projects under the PPP. Every year, a significant amount of fund - Tk 30.0 billion-is allocated in the PPP for implementation of infrastructure projects.
A number of rules and regulations were promulgated on different occasions to attract PPP proposals. But, so far success is very insignificant.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
