Rwelamila, P D and Phungula, M G (2009) Managing the complexity of public private partnerships initiatives: How mature are South African public institutions? In: Dainty, A R J (ed.) Proceedings of 25th Annual ARCOM Conference, 7-9 September 2009, Nottingham, UK.
Abstract
Public Private Partnership (PPP) principles in South Africa have grown over recent years as the merits of blending private sector resources and skills, with the public ones has become evident. It has also become clear that the PPP architecture is complex and such projects require a detailed understanding of their design and implementation. A number of PPP projects have been facilitated and these projects have been followed by many public debates. Debates have focused on issues like: the death of the public sector ethos; PPP is driven by political motive to control public spending rather than delivering better public services; PPP projects actually cost more than conventionally procured assets; and many others. The catalyst to the debates has primarily originated from half-baked responses coming from infrastructure ministries/departments. This paper reports on a case study that was carried out in one of the infrastructure departments involved in PPP initiatives. The focus is on finding out if the department has an acceptable level of project management maturity to manage the complex processes of PPPs. It is found that the maturity of the department is at Ad Hoc/Standardised (level one) of maturity ladder. Recommendations are made for a broad program of reform for the entire project management process, ranging from revising its organisational structure to cultural change.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | public private partnership; project management competence; infrastructure department; public sector; South Africa |
| Index terms: | program, private sector, public private partnership, project management process, public services, cultural change, complexity, competence, project management, South Africa, implementation, case study, motive, public sector, organizational structure |
| Subjects: | sociology, Geography, industry analysis, systems engineering, software systems, administrative law, project management theory and practice, contractual arrangements, personnel development, data collection methods, psychology |
| Topics: | Research Practice, Legal Issues, Project Management, Procurement, Engineering Principles, Geographical Context, Digital Applications, Human Resources, Business Strategy, Organizational Design |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCE |
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