Report exposes how PPPs across the world
drain the public purse, and fail to deliver in the public interest
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After the
crash, governments bailed out the banks but didn’t fix them. Finance has
refused to change its ways. The people – and our public services – have paid
the price.
Photo:
PSI/Shutterstock.com
Experts call for World Bank Group to end
aggressive promotion of PPPs for public service provision. A new report
exposing how public private partnerships across the globe have drained the
public purse and failed to deliver in the public interest will be launched at
the Annual Meetings of the World Bank in Bali next week.
History RePPPeated: How public private partnerships are
failing has been
written by experts across four continents from many civil society
organisations. They expose the negative impacts of PPPs that have often
caused misery to local communities.
The report
shows that multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank Group (WBG)
have played a leading role in providing advice and finance for PPP projects
in different sectors. This is despite the mounting evidence showing that PPPs
are expensive, risky and opaque.
Rosa
Pavanelli, Public Services International General Secretary, says:
PPPs divert
funding from the public purse to private bank accounts. Instead of creating
for-profit structures with tax payer’s money, we need investment in public
goods such as health, education and water and sanitation.
PPPs do not
deliver for communities and we call for a stop to these funding mechanisms by
the International Financial Institutions before they increase inequalities
even further.
Last year,
EURODAD launched a campaign
manifesto in which more than 150 civil society organisations from
around the world, including PSI, called for an end to the aggressive
promotion of PPPs. There is overwhelming evidence of the harm they cause.
The report
covers 10 case studies from Colombia, France, India, Indonesia, Lesotho,
Liberia, Peru, Spain and Sweden. The sectors investigated include education,
health, water and sanitation, energy and infrastructure.
Some of the
main findings are:
·
All projects came with a high cost for the
public purse, and an excessive level of risk for the public sector and,
therefore, they resulted in a heavy burden for citizens.
·
Nine out of 10 of the projects lacked
transparency and/or failed to consult with affected communities, and
undermined democratic accountability.
·
Five of the 10 projects impacted negatively
on the poor, and contributed to an increase in the divide between rich and
poor.
·
Three of the PPPs resulted in serious social
and environmental impacts.
The case
studies include the Queen Mamohato Hospital in Lesotho, which is bleeding
government coffers largely through huge costs for the treatment of patients;
and the case of Jakarta Water in Indonesia, where two PPP contracts resulted
in huge losses for the public water utility, while residents often have to rely
on groundwater from community wedge wells, or buy expensive water in jerry
cans.
The report
recommends that the WBG, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other
public development banks, together with the governments of wealthy countries
that play a leading role in these institutions:
·
Halt the aggressive promotion and
incentivising of PPPs for social and economic infrastructure financing,
·
Support countries in finding the best
financing method for public services in social and economic infrastructure.
·
Ensure good and democratic governance is in
place before pursuing large-scale infrastructure or service developments.
·
Ensure that rigorous transparency standards
are applied.
Access the full report including all case studies at: www.eurodad.org/historyrePPPeated or on PSI's website through
this link.
LAUNCH OF REPORT:
The report History RePPPeated: How
Public Private Partnerships are failing will be
launched at the World Bank/ IMF Annual Meetings 2018 in Bali Nusa Dua,
Indonesia.
·
Date: Wednesday
October 10th from 13.30 to 15:00
·
Where: Civil
Society Policy Forum, Bandung Room.
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