The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center said there are currently no irrigation projects in its pipeline amid the National Irrigation Administration’s (NIA) recent pronouncement to pursue the development of infrastructures under the PPP model.
However, Ma. Cynthia Hernandez, PPP Center executive director, said during a briefing hosted by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines yesterday she is optimistic that projects from the sector will be added soon in the agency’s pipeline.
“We are doing activities to coordinate with the national government agencies that would help them to prioritize and sort of classify their pipeline of projects under which we would be able to determine which of them are suitable for PPPs and to help them put together either a project concept note or a business case for these projects to be implemented via PPPs,” Hernandez explained.
“As of the moment, as far as I can recall, there are currently no irrigation projects in the PPP Center pipeline but we do hope to be able to add some in the near future,” she added.
Last month, NIA said it will pursue PPP projects to irrigate almost 1 million hectares of land in the country within 10 years which would require as much as P800 billion worth of funding.
Hernandez also said NIA’s priority projects would have good economic return but noted the need to vet if such programs would also have a “commercial dimension” or are better fit to be funded through direct government funding or through official development assistance.
“As we’ve seen in NIA projects that have some commercial component, would there be opportunities to have a multipurpose project that would entail, let’s say, generation of hydro or bulk water supply for nearby communities. These are the components that would make an irrigation project viable for PPP because there’s a business side to it that might help offset future capital costs and future O&Ms (operations and maintenance),” Hernandez further said.
Earlier, NIA said there are around 50 potential irrigation projects nationwide that can be pursued through PPP, majority of which are big-ticket multipurpose projects with hydropower component with potentials on floating solar power farm and small river irrigation projects with reservoirs that can be utilized for floating solar power farm and mini-hydroelectric power plants.
NIA said at present, it received investment pledges amounting to more than P1 trillion through letters of intent.
NIA serves as the lead government agency responsible in developing all possible sources of water for irrigation and has been partnering with both private firms and other government offices to fully utilize its facilities for value adding purposes.
Among the recent value-adding applied to irrigation systems are the installations of floating solar power plants and run-of-river hydropower projects.
