Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Public-private partnership deals no longer confidential
The Central Information Commission has ruled that the information in a PPP deal is not confidential and is open to public scrutiny. Link at http://www.hindustantimes.com/Public-private-partnership-deals-no-longer-confidential/H1-Article1-456228.aspx .The argument being made that the deal involves a public good and therefore the deal should be treated as an agreement between the public (but not the beurocracy) and the private company. But this might have a potential damage implications for the private sector companies with regards to their competency etc. The debate is quite open ended. I think this issue will roll out a series of discussions in the coming time. Will this boil down the ongoing debate whether people really have confidence that the government they elected is actually working for their own good. At it also raises the question that if I am a partner to the agreement (indirectly as government is just a representative of people) Why cant I know the deal I am actually entering into?
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6 comments:
The Private sector wont be the only people worried -- I'm quite sure the govt wont want the details divulged either. Even a perfectly sound PPP deal will involve giving the private party concessions/benefits etc. and there are plenty of people (read: The left parties) who would love to raise hell just for the sake of it.
However, it must also be admitted that this provision, if used sincerely, can be used to keep a check on the government from awarding PPP contracts that are not for the public good.
Very true Harsha.. The decision can be benificial or detrimental depending on use or abuse of it. On one hand it can bring the deals under constructive scrutiny. This will help in increasing transparency and can help improving the existing models if someone can slice and dice the information properly. On the other hand, it might lead to harrassment of public agencies.. which may lead to very standard form of deals curtailing innovation.
I think this is a positive step taken towards promoting PPPs by building up trust and increasing transparency 'cos I believe ,as Harsha says,that people who are against the PPP model will anyways find other reasons for opposing it. The Alandur sewerage project, which had a similar provision, is one good example which proves that it is the "faith in the partnership" that matters most in the success of project.
What Bhagya said is right.. The Alandur sewerage Project is one good example, but there the mayor was in his post for quite sometime and he already had gained some confidence in the public. But that is a very rare case. In most places in India, where the leaders keep changing every term it becomes very difficult to get acceptance from every one of them. If some people are for it , there are an equal or more number who are against it.
However, if used properly this can be a powerful tool to instill amongst the people the concept of PPP.
I totally agree with the view point that this is a positive step. Most cases that we discussed in the course illustrated that transparency and inclusivity are extremely important for the success of PPP projects. From Cochabamba which failed because the public was in the dark, through Enron where there was complete lack of transparency, till Alandur where public trust was garnered, keeping the people informed has always been the key to success.
That said, I do agree that there will be trouble makers. As has been pointed out, these people will create trouble anyway. So, I do not think that PPPs should be left out of the RTI when every other sector in the country is under its purview.
I agree with all of you as this is a step taken for all good. Since it will pave a way for the feedback from various agencies involved well in time which can be taken care of in policy framing, contractual obligations & implementation strategy which were taking quite lot of time prior and thus were blocking its implementation further the cost implication were quite high being discovered in later stages.
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