• Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, outlined amendments to the National Treasury Regulation 16 and Municipal PPP Regulation 309.
• The amendments aim to streamline the process for establishing PPPs.
• Amendments to the Municipal PPP Regulation 309 will be announced in June.

The private sector can often afford to do things the public sector struggles to do and so there is a need for collaboration between the two sectors.

We see these sorts of partnerships more often than you may realise. The Discovery Pothole Patrol, for example, is a partnership between the private and public sector that has fixed more than 260 000 potholes in Johannesburg. In the Western Cape, Liquid Intelligent Technologies partners with local government to drive digital transformation.

However, while these sorts of partnerships are encouraged, there are many hurdles that slow them down, something Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana hopes to change.

On Thursday last week the minister laid out amendments to the National Treasury Regulation 16 and Municipal PPP Regulation 309. The public consultation process for these amendments concluded in April last year and comments were considered in amending the regulations.

The hope is that these amendments will drive investment and confidence in public-private partnerships (PPP), bringing more of these partnerships online.

As summarised by the National Treasury, the amendments have the following goals:

• “Smaller projects may be exempted from Treasury Approvals IIA and IIB based on a threshold.
• The PPP Advisory Unit’s mandate have been clarified to support institutions in the planning and procurement process for PPPs and to fast track the conclusion of PPP projects to reach financial close.
• A provision has been made to give national departments the authority to establish dedicated units which take a programmatic approach to supporting PPPs on behalf of the state. The PPP Advisory Unit will work closely with these other units to drive PPPs.
• The legislative amendments provide mechanisms to report, track and manage Fiscal Commitments and Contingent Liabilities through the FCCL reporting requirements at Treasury Approval I, IIB and III.
• The provisions with respect to granting exemptions to NTR 16 have been improved to ensure good governance.
• The provision with respect to applications where institutions seek approvals for amendments to PPP agreements has been improved and clearly explained to ensure good governance.
• The provision of a clear framework for receiving and processing PPP Unsolicited Proposals together with incentives to ease entry for the private sector.”

More details about this push for greater collaboration between the private and public sector will be furnished in the 2025 Budget Review documents. These details will enable public institutions to meet the requirements laid out in the new regulations.

“The amendments to the Municipal PPP Regulation 309 require more time because of procedural processes, including consultation with Parliament. These amendments will be finalised by June 2025,” National Treasury said.

While we enjoy seeing the public and private sectors working together, these collaborations aren’t always well received. The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport’s Adopt and Protect a Robot campaign launched last year was seen by many as local government trying to get out of fulfilling its own mandate to maintain traffic lights.

However, eventually things tend to become so bad that citizens will take any solution they can to address bugbears as we’ve seen with the Pothole Patrol and other PPPs.