Task force to accelerate state projects

The government has formed a Project Preparation Facility (PPF) at state asset utilization fund TAIPED to assist with major strategic investments and the absorption of Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) resources, starting with a portfolio of projects budgeted at 2.5 billion euros.

This portfolio concerns 19 projects and reforms approved by the Government Committee for Contracts of Strategic Significance, which has met for the first time, chaired by Infrastructure Minister Kostas A. Karamanlis.

PPF’s role is to overcome problems generated by bureaucracy and to coordinate the various agencies of the ministries and entities involved. It will build on TAIPED’s know-how after 10 years of operation so as to accelerate investments. This will not concern every TAIPED asset up for sale, concession or any other form of utilization, but rather state projects that the task force will run as a consultant to the state, dealing with processes that remain exceptionally time-consuming and inflexible.

Under the management of TAIPED consultant Panagiotis Stamboulidis, PPF has already been strengthened with new officials and will also use the provisions of the TAIPED founding law for the fast-tracked hiring of external consultants (legal, technical, financial etc) to assist in its operation. Sources add that the tender procedures and the maturing of projects to be conceded to PPF will adopt and implement the strictest standards of social and environmental sustainability.

The PPF portfolio consists of almost all Development Ministry projects included in the RRF, several hospitals, the Olympic Sports Center of Athens (OAKA), the Athens Court of First Instance, 35 fire stations in protected forests and other projects that may be of strategic importance but are not included in the “Greece 2.0” program but will still be implemented via public-private partnerships, such as the regeneration of the area around Korydallos Prison.

In total there are 16 projects and three reforms by the ministries of Health, Justice, Development, Environment and Energy, Culture and Sports and of the Regional Authority of Attica. They are all in the Greece 2.0 program as well as the Environment and Energy Ministry’s Development Program for Contracts of Strategic Significance.