{"id":768125,"date":"2024-04-16T10:17:08","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=768125"},"modified":"2024-04-16T10:17:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:17:14","slug":"government-turning-to-the-private-sector-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/768125\/government-turning-to-the-private-sector-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Government turning to the private sector again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>National Treasury is extending the deadline for public comments for the Budget Facility for Infrastructure (BFI), which aims to increase private sector participation in South Africa&#8217;s infrastructure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The public comment deadline has been extended to 17 May 2024, giving project sponsors more time to package and submit their proposals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The BFI is a reform established in 2016 to support the execution of priority infrastructure projects and programmes through a more rigorous planning, appraisal, and selection process,&#8221; said National Treasury.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The National Treasury intends to utilise this BFI Window to develop a pipeline of projects and programmes to test alternative financing and funding models.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Public institutions, such as National, Provincial, and Municipal governments, are invited to submit projects and programmes that will form part of the project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The main aim of the BFI Special Window is to close funding gaps, providing viability gap funding for projects and programmes that will use<strong> private sector financing and technical assistance<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The Call for Proposals is open to projects and programmes that are undertaken under alternative financing and delivery mechanisms and private sector participation frameworks such as Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) and concessions,&#8221; said National Treasury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The BFI can be seen below: (Mobile users click <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/BFI-2024.pdf\">here<\/a>): <\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/BFI-2024.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Growing partnership<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The South African government has been increasingly turning to the private sector for assistance in recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, President Cyril Ramaphosa and over a hundred CEOs from South Africa&#8217;s biggest companies agreed to work together to tackle three of the nation&#8217;s biggest issues &#8211; energy, logistics and crime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of logistics, Transnet has taken a number of steps to ensure greater private sector participation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the 2024 Budget Speech, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said that third-party access would be introduced to Transnet&#8217;s freight rail network from May of this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A PPP has also been secured to upgrade Pier 2 of the Durban Container Terminal, with the Minister saying that private investment will go into equipment, and enhance techonoglocal capability and operational efficiency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In terms of energy, Eskom will soon unbundle into three separate companies, focusing on generation, distribution and transmission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Eskom&#8217;s generation failures have been the root cause of load shedding, the unbundling should see greater private sector generation, with Eskom&#8217;s transmission company acting as a buyer in the new open electricity market. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/768109\/the-truth-behind-eskoms-load-shedding-success\/\">The truth behind Eskom\u2019s load shedding success<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>National treasury has extended the deadline for public comments for the Budget Facility for Infrastructure, with hopes of drawing more private sector investment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":768142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-768125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768125"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768145,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768125\/revisions\/768145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}