Public private partnerships: Overcoming pre-contract problems faced by public clients and private providers in infrastructure projects in Singapore

After five years since their introduction, there remains a dearth of public-private partnership (PPP) projects in Singapore. This paper aims to investigate the problems faced when using PPP arrangements and provide recommendations on how these can be surmounted. Face-to-face in-depth interviews with practitioners from the public and private sectors were conducted. The results show that the problems faced by public PPP clients are: difficulty in deciding if a public service could be bought using the PPP route; private providers' inability to innovate and understand clients' requirements; private sector's low capability in facilities management; and public sector's constantly changing needs. The difficulties faced by private providers are: inability to recoup expenditure; absence of a PPP champion; high tendering cost; criteria for awards are unclear; and risk allocation is unfair. Recommendations on how problems faced in the PPP pre-contract stage might be overcome are presented.