Public-Private Partnership Law No.5 of 2016.

This Law consisting of 83 articles aims at (i) enabling the private sector to participate in one or more of the following works: designing, constructing, building, implementing, maintaining, rehabilitating, developing, managing, or operating public utilities, infrastructure, or projects owned by the public sector, and encouraging it to invest in the activities above; (ii) ensuring that the services provided through this partnership are based on sound economic foundations, high efficiency, and in the most appropriate manner and achieve an added value to local resources; (iii) ensuring transparency, non-discrimination, equal opportunities, competitiveness, safety and legality of all procedures related to partnership contracts, to ensure that services are performed in a manner that pursues the public interest while ensuring the rights of all parties, including the ultimate beneficiaries of services and investors from the private sector. The provisions of this Law apply to partnership contracts concluded by the public entity with the private sector to create, develop or expand the project and invest it by the private sector alone or in partnership with another public or private entity through the project company to deliver services to the general public. Excluded from the application of the provisions of this Law are the contracts for exploration and investment of natural resources such as oil.
Article 7 establishes a Participation Council with the following main tasks (i) push PPP projects forward; (ii) control and coordinate partnership projects between the public and private sectors in all fields; (iii) approve PPP contracts; (iv) regulate agreements entered into by public and private sector partners. Chaired by the Prime Minister, it is the main authority about partnership matters, sets the different types “or models” for partnership contracts, and issues a guide for each of them. Article 8 establishes the PPP Bureau PPP Bureau, the institutional focal point for implementing the PPP program such as by (i) identifying potential projects; (ii) actively participating in the project procurement lifecycle; (iii) providing technical, administrative, legal, financial, economic and other advice necessary for the Council and all public bodies in relation to partnership. Article 11 provides for functions of the Tender Evaluation Committee, the body that evaluates bids and selects preferred bidders in a manner that ensures a fair and professional evaluation of the bids, and it may involve one or more external auditors in the capacity of an observer in order to ensure independence and complete confidentiality and prevent conflicts of interest.
The environmental protection is dealt with in article 71 and requires (i) the Environmental Impact Assessment study - necessary for establishing, building, implementing or rehabilitating a partnership project that could impact on the environment - that need to be approved by the authority concerned with environmental affairs before signing the partnership contract; (ii) other measures aimed at increasing the protection of the natural and heritage environment that may be added to the partnership contract, provided that they are included in the initial qualification announcement. The Law (i) provides for investment incentives for private sector partners to become shareholders in special purpose vehicles, which include the right of financial repatriation by foreign investors; and (ii) contains, inter alia, provisions on the protection of intellectual property rights.