ASCERTAINING THE CONTRACTUAL FEATURES, LEGAL CLASSIFICATIONS AND MODELS IN THE EXISTING LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP (PPP) IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The paper explores the various features, classifications and models of PPP with a view to measuring whether the existing dominant legal framework in Nigeria, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) Act 2005, could accommodate the various PPP tendencies and manifestations. When the ICRC Act was promulgated in 2005 and its Board inaugurated in 2009, there was so much optimism that the PPP policy in Nigeria would deliver public infrastructure and services successfully. In less than a decade and latching on the optimism, many agencies of the Federal Government came up with various innovative PPP programmes and schemes whose regulation by the ICRC was ambivalent. The amortization arrangement of the NPA, the land swap programme of the FCT, the road tax credit scheme of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the production sharing contracts of the NNPC, and the InfraCorp and other PPP intervention projects of the CBN are programmes and schemes which the ICRC neglected or refused to effectively regulate. Since the aspirations of the Federal Government in closing the public infrastructure stock deficit are expressly stipulated in its various National plans, there is a need to explore if existing legal framework could accommodate the various features and classifications of PPP as to make such aspirations achievable. The paper therefore looked at the general features and classification of PPP to conclude that the provision of the ICRC Act did not capture expressly and adequately the general classifications and models of PPP as to give both the public and private sectors the confidence to explore and innovate different PPP arrangements. Consequently, the paper recommended for the amendment of ICRC Act and the institution of value threshold to enable public authorities pursue specific category of PPP projects with less regulatory bureaucracy.