Pakistan's federal government has introduced a bill in the National Assembly to merge the Privatisation Commission and the Public-Private Partnership Authority (P3A) into a single body, the Privatisation and Public-Private Partnership Commission. The government says the two institutions were both working to bring private capital into public assets and infrastructure, duplicating functions and processes.
According to sources, the proposed law amends both the Privatisation Commission Ordinance 2000 and the Public Private Partnership Authority Act 2017. The P3A Act would be repealed and the authority dissolved, with all of its existing contracts transferred to the new commission without disadvantage to private partners.
The most striking, and potentially contentious, part of the bill is an immunity clause. It shields current and all former chairmen, secretaries, board members, officials and consultants from legal action and investigation over acts or omissions made in good faith, and allows public funds to be used to fight any such cases.
How the new body would work
The commission would be led by the current chairman, Muhammad Ali, with a board made up mostly of independent private-sector members, including at least two women. It would run four non-lapsable public funds: the privatisation fund, the public contribution fund, the viability gap fund and the PPP project development fund, financed through the federal budget, international lenders and investment income.
It could also order any government agency to submit, within 15 days, a full list of its existing and planned projects, referring non-compliance to the ministry concerned. PPP agreements would become public documents that any citizen can obtain, and P3A staff would be retained for six months or until their contracts end, whichever comes first. The bill now awaits debate and passage in the National Assembly.