Cabinet approves gazetting National Agency for PPPs Bill

Wednesday, 21 October 2026 00:26 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa

The Cabinet of Ministers at their meeting on Monday approved the publication in the Government Gazette of a draft Bill to establish a National Agency for Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and to provide a legal framework for promoting and facilitating such projects in Sri Lanka. The Bill will then be submitted to Parliament for approval.

The Cabinet first approved the introduction of a new Act on 2 June 2025. The draft Bill has since been prepared by the Legal Draftsman and cleared by the Attorney General.

Speaking at the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing, Cabinet Spokesman and Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa said the legislation was shaped by opportunities and challenges identified in PPPs in recent years.

“Specifically, this includes establishing a comprehensive statutory and legal framework for identifying, formulating, evaluating, approving, procuring, implementing, monitoring, and concluding PPP projects,” he said.

The National Agency for PPP will facilitate, advise, coordinate, monitor and assist in executing PPP projects across all sectors of the economy.

The Bill also seeks to integrate PPP projects with the public investment management framework set up under the Public Financial Management Act, and to ensure fiscal discipline and consistency in project approval and monitoring.

It provides for a transparent, competitive procurement framework to select private partners in line with guidelines issued by the National Procurement Commission.

“This Bill is being drafted to place PPPs on a much more structured and formalised footing,” Dr. Jayatissa said.

Sri Lanka’s difficulty in executing PPPs for major infrastructure and national investment projects has stemmed from institutional, legal and political bottlenecks. Among them are policy unpredictability and abrupt changes of government, which have often led to the renegotiation, suspension or cancellation of major foreign-backed projects, eroding investor confidence.

He acknowledged that previous attempts to implement PPPs had not delivered the speed and efficiency the country needed, blaming transparency issues, inter-agency friction, institutional coordination problems and other bottlenecks.

“There are legal framework issues and institutional issues. In addressing these, this Bill is intended to resolve the statutory and legal constraints,” he said.

The proposal to this effect was submitted by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in his capacity as the Finance, Planning and Economic Development Minister.