The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Special fees for these services, provide services, users, profits, for the experience.
What happens for this period? If it's project is the government papers, private sector will calculate all the risks, all the costs, five years with the future value. They will put in financial model through expert advisors, come out with this.
What if the project is 20 years, that? If it's 15 years, might be 13, by the end of the day, private sector would appreciate assets over this period and the government will be very shortened. Doing this for government.
Is this affordable for the government? Why it's 15 years, expand it to 20 years or 30 years, sometimes we do this, we find that from 20 to 25, price drops. 25 to portion, drops something like 1%.
Adopt payback. Why is this? Because at this point, replacement, so some of the equipment should be replaced. Additional coming, all of this are calculated. No trust.
For instance, the solar energy project, 25 years. Project is 35 years. After this, 35 years, goes to zero, so no transfer. Nothing to be transferred back to government. No lifetime in the project to be transferred.
Also, operation revenues sharing don't, built own and operated and government is giving license or part of business. You have to pay back to the government percentage of the revenue. 2%, 5%, depending on the project and financing of the project. One of the most famous models(?)
What are the opportunities? A lot of projects in regard. I want to tell you that the ICT order communication is the most advanced systems since the case, one of which is the (?) business of the government. Gave it to the private sector to do. They have the technology, know‑how, capacity, to operate it better than the government. Gives licensure to provide the service. Controlling through regulator. Private sector not left alone. Private agreement(?) this is very important. Private sector.
Services is one of the four. Given this kind of sector, technology is moving. Every day, have something new. New business emphasis on the PPP project is performance‑based. Pay the private sector when we get the service.
In the contract, we describe the outcome. Do this business to provide you with one, two, three, four, five, agreements is provided. Performance indicators in the contract to judge his performance and pay him in full or cancel.
It's a performance‑based contract. We buy service with the service. What we do for a project like fiberoptics, we give the private sector. Very important. Number one, right to (?) for to private sector.
If he wants to do his own business, fiberoptics, he will face the problem of the track or right to wait for this projects.
Is very important to throw a clear line between the obligations and the mandates of the public sector and the private sector. Rights, his obligations, and his mandates describe the project.
So can build this fiber system and manage it and operate it and provide the digital and all of these kind of services for the government for fixed fees that you would be, against competition.
These fees for the data usage of these cables will be for a period of five, then back to the government. Talking to infrastructure, obtaining service, and providing service for the companies, internet connectivity projects like for cities.
One of the most famous project in the case in government and even in the other countries around us is e‑government projects. All the e‑government projects are PPP projects. By nature, e‑government, government should be providing these services. Private sector to provide the back office part of the private sector of the business.
By the end of the day, you will come to the office, for instance, or any of these offices for the government services and you will find the public official sitting giving you the service with his screen in front of him and providing this service. Even get service through the internet.
In the back office, all the networks, all the service, all the applications, all the printers and papers, all of this is managed and governed by the private sector. So private sector is availing the system for the public official and this availability paid system.
E‑governments with different forms projects could be that, actually, it is done under the PP structures. Very wide. Mix and match and create a lot of structure once the framework of the PP's is there.
E‑government, you can have the collaboration live projects, importance as mentioned. Digital payment systems also done through the private sector. Data analysis platforms, important new business coming in especially when we have around us, last few months, last year, A.I. going all around us. Everything is around A.I.
The data analysis before the A.I. is completely different than the data analysis of the A.I. Before the A.I. managers, we do our internal analysis. Either we have the so‑called descriptive analysis, which gives you what happens to the analysis to know what happened in the problem that you're facing, or we go to so‑called diagnostic analysis to understand why this happened.
With A.I., there is another kind of analysis that we're having now. The data is available, but the technology that you use to utilize this data through the A.I. services, you can have something new, which is productive analysis, which you can predict what will happen because in your business as a manager, what we do, you're either solving a problem or avoiding a problem. Higher level, predict the problem and try to avoid it.
So this is kind of analysis that A.I. can give you and this data could be analyzed in a different way so you can oversee what will happen and try to give another way to avoid these problems and get it.
Also prospective analysis. With the A.I., managers have a lot of data mining, got the data, and this kind of analysis would provide you with different (?)
So what other importance? Cybersecurity, have the partnership, incident responses. All of this kind of projects, you can give it to the private sector under the approval of the government for the sake of the government. So the governments pay it for the services, all of this could be done, this is different opportunities.
One of the major or the big opportunities that we're facing everywhere, a lot of them, different countries, is the (?) expanding. This is business of private sector of the regulation, of the government.
You have a city. Smart city is a big word. In the smart city, a lot of projects coming up. Transportation, energy managing, energy saving, waste management, green management. All of this kind of energy, smart energy, all these are different subprojects from the smart city project and there are some kind of applications, Word‑based applications that are managing big cities.
This is another big business for the private sector and managed by and under the control and performance‑based contracts signed by the government. So the government as the beneficiaries at the same time are benefiting from this service. Government and the beneficiaries.
Another new dimension. Don't want to get involved that much. Let you know. Something called PPP, public‑private partnerships. We have four Ps. People first, public‑private partnerships.
This is the new era of the PPs. By the end of the day, big beneficiary is the user. Even if the government is the overtaker, government to the users or beneficiaries because this is the business of the government, so the users and people. Something like smart city is not dealing with the government or with the (?) dealing with these guys plus the users. Beneficiaries, users of the synthesis of the city, users of the city. This is another dimension.
I only have 10 minutes.
PPPs are not the Utopia. Not as easy as just mentioned. A lot of challenges in structuring, managing the PP project. I'll take this from the point of view of ICT, in that sector.
When you're doing a business with the private sector providing this kind of service to the government, the first thing the government is very much worried about is data security. Private sector will have an access to data analysis. Private sector should not be holding data. Data should be encrypted. How can I trust the private sector? This is one of the major challenges.
Actually, a lot of projects were postponed or delayed or even stopped because of this major threat. Private sector here has to ensure, through technologies implemented, that the data and the sensitive data, even if the private sector is managing the data flow and storage, but not having access, even if I have access, data is completely encrypted and this should be ensured. Otherwise, there is a problem.
Technology available, technology now can provide this very easy. Very easy. You can have definitely some kind of hacking. Hacking is everywhere. Big names, big technology companies have been hacked. Something that is also available providing. Either the government is operating or the private sectors, kind of common risk, but the data privacy of the data is one of the major facts.
Actually we faced giving business for the 42 countries. This is common factor everywhere in the world, everywhere in the world. Private sector, security, send out the data. All the things.
Second thing (?) framework environment of this projects, this is one of the threats. This contract or this project, regulatory bodies have all the other entities have the right to oversee what's happening in this contract; however, they are not signing this contract with us. Yes. In the contract, it should state something, by the way.
PP contracts are 300 or 400 pages. It's a contract that is managing the relation between two entities for 20 years or 30 years, and in this 20 years or 30 years, a lot of things might happen. A lot of things might happen that you cannot even detect.
This contract is telling you, when this happens, what will happen? Get into dispute, what should we do to resolve this? Project should continue. Terminating the project, PP project, even if we take the private sector out, kill them. By the end of the day, everybody is losing. Government is losing. Private sector is losing. Private sector losing money. Government, project, beneficiaries should be served. Distraction of services. A lot of problem.
So every which way in the country, to resolve all of this kind of dispute before we go to any kind of operations.
One risks or challenges is the financial. Major. Private sector is there to make money. I respect it. Understand it and respect it. Actually this is one of the safeguards of PP when the private sector is doing money, making money, and doing profits, this is one of the key points that makes this project sustainable and ongoing.
When there's a problem in the finance for the project or any financial interruption of the project, the government has to come and see what's going on before one way or another. But on the other hand, if worse come to worse, you have to terminate and kick them out or sometimes it happens.
Private sector funder is losing and losing and losing. Next morning, it's out. We call it the contract. One of the major. Accordingly, some measures that you have to take. One of which is capacity of the government entity to manage, at least to operate the system for period of time. Get another project. That's one.
The other thing that I usually used to do, because sometimes I cannot trust building the capacity of the government because once you have the capability sitting there ready to operate, you not be left for you, government taken by the private sector.
So sometimes, when the project is big enough and could be split into regions or sectors, I get it out to different bundles. We make sure that each bundle should go for the different private sector, two, two.
So I have two or three operators operating different regions or different areas in the kingdom. For any of them, have a problem and is not performing, or any financial issues, or even technical issues, you can get one of these operators to save a project, and because he is in another sector doing the same business with the same application. So it's easy to extend his services even for a period of time and, actually, this is well‑defined in the contracts of each of them. This is measures to provide to avoid some of these challenges.
Two minutes.
When you do PPs in any part of the world, not perceived well by the people. It's always understood or even by the media, as you say, always understood that is the backdoor of privatization. Government is throwing us to the private sector to eat us up. A lot of resistance takes place, so this is important to have some kind of media campaign to gain some trust in the projects.
As I mentioned very beginning, ICT communication proves that to the ICT sector, so people very happily working with the private sector. Then the internet provide service ICT, all of these kind of services, but in other different projects, still when you find a private sector giving you the bill, not happy that much. That's why some projects, government is an interface between the private sector and beneficiaries like the other sector, power sector.
Other challenges like the risk management and risks take place. When you study the project in the first place and know what kind of risk you have, try to allocate this kind of risk to the government, private sector, go to changes, new risks comes out. This means that is (?)
Finish with this, I hope. The contract management, actually, contract management term is new. The contract management is different than the project management. Other like we have professional project manager, but we don't have real professional contract managers.
Managing a contract is different from managing a project. Managing a contract is the key between legal, technical, and financial members managing a contract.
We got the arbitration. Sometimes, as a government, lose the arbitration because we didn't management contract properly even if we have the right, so longterm projects dictates importance of the contract manager.
Last challenge of the PP project and ICT, happens every day, every morning, especially in the ICT, is the technology change. Technology changes is something we're facing every day especially in the ICT. It's over the other technology. Conceptual changes.
Before A.I., we were dealing with a system and, now, we have another system. This project of 20 years, middle of the project, changes might take place or, actually, either the private sector goes to the government, new technologies is there and you have to be complied with the project. Accordingly, I have to invest more money and I need support of the government, or the change order comes from a different, comes from the government itself.
What are you doing? You're operating with a system eight or nine years back and new systems coming in, you secured this, you want this new system. So it's government or the government change. Government have to comply with this readjust because there's a lot of investment coming in from the private sector. Have to readjust the fees of the services. Either the government will bear it or the fees will be increased a little bit on the beneficiaries.
These are the quickly challenges and opportunities of ICT of the PP structure. Went through it very quickly. A lot of, not a lot of, all the world are using PPs have started with the ICT and expanding the ICT, e‑government.
As I mentioned, smart cities will be everywhere and the contracts are solving and taking care of all of this kind of challenges as it happens or exerts everywhere.
If there's any questions that I can answer before I leave, I will be very happy to receive. I know the organizers might kick me out. Any question, I'll be happy to answer. Please.
>> Thank you so much for this insightful session. Private sector. I always noticed that change is difficult left alone and public sector. My question to you is what would you recommend for effective change in such environments?
>> Unless it's stated in the contracts and steps, what happens in case that the private sector is asking for a change, change comes in three ways.
Private sector request and this has the technology, and government has to changes. Complying with the regulation and add to the system, will not affect the other performance and give them the approval at no extra cost. He will bear the cost. Or the change comes from the government. I want you to do this. I want you to add that. We need to give to the people, so you have to.
In this case, there's a new investment coming in. Private sector has right to say, yes, I will secure this financing and please adjust my fees. Or I don't have the capacity to get this so the government can do the so‑called financing, finance part of it and the government and private sector bears risk and the increased fees would be proportional.
What the third case that we have to choose? Imagine what's the third? Change the rule. If a rule, new rule comes, you have to change something.
Like the environmental, those dictates you have to put filters or whatever, or any chimneys, whatever, this is condition. No one can say you cannot agree with the private sector. Postpone this. This is it. Crime. Change. In this case, private sector has to comply and financing and find financing and government has to change the fees, cost of the service.
But this should be stated in the contract. You will be facing changes throughout the 10, 15, 20, 30 years of a project almost every year, changes of law, changes of framework, legal framework, changes of the technology, changes.
Unless the contract is describing properly what should be done and what is the rights and the mandates of the private sector, three case of changes, you will be having the dispute or let's send in legal sheet. In this case, you have to counterpart understanding and the government side and private sector side.
If one of which is covered enough, not going anywhere. Putting it in the contract will solve the problem. A lot of problems. I could help you with that. A lot of problems to manage this kind of change.
Any other questions? Yes, please.
>> Thank you so much for your excellent presentation with the digital approach. I will switch to Arabic.
(Arabic language)
>> The VISA as you mentioned, example for government using PPs or private sector, do very specific and security‑wise, like the VISA. Actually, this did not happen in the first place. Private sector was allowed to go into the government business in the projects that the government facility to test the system and to give confidence to the users or to the beneficiaries that introducing private sector will not affect the individuals like the water business, power business, transportation.
Data and security is very tough. Actually, even countries like European countries like the U.K. or Paris or even the USA, when they started work eagerly on the online system, still very beginning, they said that operations, data centers, and service should be sitting in my office.
Even the USA project that was started, that now, encryption and start testing encryptions and testing the coding and all the things were a little bit more confident, so now, it's in the cloud. Still, countries loves to have the projects or the data in‑house.
That's why, recently, data centers, PPPs are moving everywhere. System in the cloud, but the data is data center sitting somewhere here with redundancy sitting other where another city under my control.
Still, even the data there is encrypted and this data is coded and the key of coding is at the government side, which is that's why the most successful projects, as I mentioned, is that you have the private sector doing the whole work in the back office and you would be sitting, using getting the service from Saudi or Egyptian or French or British public official.
When you go to the notary office, notarize agreement or something with the notary who is authorized from the government to sign and establish this agreement, but the business that you apply appointment, you have an appointment and put all of your data that should be put on the VISA and all of this, done through would be given encrypted data. Go in front of the process, printed side, thank you very much.
Private sector is managing it. Fine. All hard work and software and the operating systems and supplies and connectivity, connectivity, all of the things, it's his business and available in the system for you and data are still in your data centers or data center that you trust the government.
Still, it is, however, technology is moving that, but still, it's internal trust that will never leave. Be there always.
You go, but still, that's why, as I mentioned, data centers, these are moving everywhere. However, all the world is working with clouds, but still, data, especially sensitive governmental data, is in our data centers. Even data centers managed by the private sector, but data is there.
Thank you. Any other questions? I think they're kicking me out. I have to leave. I'll be around. Anyone has any questions, I'll be more than happy. Thank you very much.