Panabo City is close to having its first modern market complex at the Central Business District (Poblacion). The Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Center in Manila recently posted that the project for Panabo is included in their Pipeline of Projects as of 2019 and now on its Approval Stage. The proposed Panabo Town Center Project, which will be established specifically at the open area where the former Century Bank stands, is the first PPP Project for the City Government of Panabo through the initiative of incumbent City Mayor James G Gamao.
According to the PPP Center Website, Public-Private Partnership is a way that the Philippine Government provides incentives to stimulate private resources to finance the construction, operation, and maintenance of public infrastructure and development projects.
The PPP Project in Panabo City costs P417 Million with the PPP Center naming the Philippine Primark Properties, Inc. as the proponent. The city’s equity is the use of the land while the chosen investor will design, build, and operate.
In 2017, Mayor James Gamao approved City Ordinance No. 25-17 or the Public-Private Partnership (Local Guidelines and Procedures) to answer concerning modalities or schemes of partnership for projects between the LGU and the private sectors in accordance to Republic Act 7718 or the Build-Operate-Transfer Law.
With the plans to improve the old market site, it was high time for the City Government to build a modern economic enterprise with facilities relevant to the needs and comfort of the panaboans. Thus, the proposal was submitted to the PPP Center in Manila for review.
On an information material released by the PPP Center, it shows that the project involves financing, construction, operation, and maintenance of the new Panabo Town Center. The project aims to develop a modern, aesthetic, well-built, clean, convenient, energy efficient, climate change resilient, and culturally adaptive commercial town center with integrated commercial retail space components.
The PPP Center provides technical assistance to national government agencies (NGAs), government-owned-and controlled corporations (GOCCs), government financial institutions (GFIs), state universities and colleges (SUCs), and local government units (LGUs) as well as to the private sector to help develop and implement critical infrastructure and other development projects.
