Studies
[NGO Study] Never mind the balance sheet - the dangers posed by public-private partnerships in central and eastern Europe
(November 27, 2008)
In recent years public-private partnerships (PPPs)
have been heavily promoted in central and eastern
Europe (CEE), often giving the impression that where
infrastructure is concerned, PPPs are the only game in
town. Yet behind the plethora of conferences, workshops
and publications, few CEE countries have implemented
more than two or three PPP projects, and even fewer
truly successful projects.
As George Monbiot, UK author and investigative journalist, says of the Private Finance Initiative, the British variant on PPP: “The reality is that PFI, or “public private partnership” as the government now prefers to call it, is a scam. (...) Far from introducing market disciplines, it has become an official licence to fleece the taxpayer. Far from reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, PFI is, as the Accounting Standards Board has noted, simply an “an off-balance sheet fiddle”. Most alarmingly, the ministers I have spoken to simply do not understand how it works.”
Click on the image to flip through the document in fullscreen or download a pdf in one of the languages below.
As George Monbiot, UK author and investigative journalist, says of the Private Finance Initiative, the British variant on PPP: “The reality is that PFI, or “public private partnership” as the government now prefers to call it, is a scam. (...) Far from introducing market disciplines, it has become an official licence to fleece the taxpayer. Far from reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, PFI is, as the Accounting Standards Board has noted, simply an “an off-balance sheet fiddle”. Most alarmingly, the ministers I have spoken to simply do not understand how it works.”
Click on the image to flip through the document in fullscreen or download a pdf in one of the languages below.
CEE Bankwatch Network gratefully acknowledges EU funding support.