PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS AGENCY

The DGAPP is the institution responsible for the structuring, promotion, supervision and regulation of infrastructure projects, goods, and services of social interest, which are planned and developed in the Dominican Republic under the modality of public-private alliances (PPP).

MISSION

Promote and regulate public-private alliances in an orderly, efficient, and transparent manner, ensuring compliance with the law and mitigating the risks of the projects, through the regulation and supervision of the public and private agents that participate.

VISION

Our vision is to ensure that alliances between the public and private sectors are carried out in a transparent, orderly, and efficient way, guaranteeing a climate of legal security and investment that allows the attraction of local and foreign investment to boost the economy and the development of infrastructure in the country for the benefit of social development.

VALUES

Efficiency
Transparency
Integrity
Ethics
Responsibility
Commitment
Objectivity

FUNCTIONS

The Public-Private Partnerships Agency has the following functions and powers:

1) Technical functions:

To promote and coordinate with the competent public entities the regulations, plans, policies, standards and initiatives required for the development and proper functioning of the different forms of public-private participation provided for in this law;
To receive and consolidate information regarding the promotion of public-private partnership projects;
To issue the corresponding response to each of the proposals submitted by public and private agents, related to the phases of the selection process in accordance with the provisions of this law;
To consolidate in a report the technical opinions of the different public entities that participate in the National Council of Public-Private Partnerships and others that may be invited or consulted;
To conduct the phases of the procedures for the presentation, declaration of public interest and selection process of private initiatives and offers described in articles 39 and 40 of this law;
To keep the registry and publication of all the projects of public-private partnerships that are executed in the Dominican Republic, according to what is established in the regulations;
To create and maintain a project bank as stipulated in this law; and
To act as secretary at meetings of the National Council of Public-Private Partnerships.

2) Administrative functions:

To prepare the regulations of general scope to be issued by the Executive Power and dictate the standards and technical plans of particular scope, as established by this law and its regulations;
To prevent anti-competitive or discriminatory practices, in accordance with this law and its regulations;
To settle, in accordance with the principles of this law and its regulations and safeguarding the public interest, claims and disputes that may arise between public agents, private agents and bidders;
To control compliance, supervision and monitoring of the normal execution of current public-private partnership contracts;
To apply the sanctioning regime before the commission of administrative offenses provided for in this law; and
To manage their own resources.

3) Promotion functions:

To promote the plan of public-private partnerships as an adequate instrument for the provision, management and operation of goods or services of social interest, among potential funders, national and international investors, and the community in general;
To prepare guidelines, manuals, instructions or other forms of dissemination to facilitate knowledge of the public-private partnership plan, project design, management, monitoring and evaluation;
To promote among potential national and international investors the calls for competitive bidders selection processes, in order to guarantee the greatest number of bidders;
To disseminate and promote the implementation of projects registered in the project bank; and
To develop and implement a public information policy for accountability to Dominican society.

INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

The National Council of Public Private Partnerships, CNAPP
The National Council of Public Private Partnerships is the highest body of the General Directorate of Public Private Partnerships, responsible for the functions of evaluation and determination of the relevance of the public private alliances presented in accordance with this law.

SIGMUND FREUND
Executive Director

He has a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) and a doctorate in legal sciences from the Universidad de Externado (Colombia). He specialized in administrative law at the University Paris II, France; and in telecommunications at the Canadian Telecommunications Administration Institute in Montreal.

He is currently a member of the Dominican Bar Association and president-founder of the Association of Dominican Students in France and of the Association of Dominican – French Jurists; he serves as secretary of the Dominican-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.

Likewise, he is a professor of administrative law and telecommunications law at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra, in the undergraduate and graduate areas and holds the position of legal director of the Modern Revolutionary Party (PRM).