Challenges for implementing public private partnership in housing projects in dar es salaam city, Tanzania

Despite the absence of a PPP legal framework Tanzania has started to adopt PPP in a few sectors including the housing sector. The housing sector plays a major role in the economic development and wellbeing of society; however, if not looked at carefully it can rapidly support the growth of informal settlements and foster a sense of segregation and isolation within a community specifically for low income earners. Tanzania has been facing a severe shortage of quality and affordable houses and the situation is most critical in urban areas because of rapid rate of urbanization. The Government has drawn up a number of solutions to provide adequate and affordable housing to the majority of the urban population; however adequacy and affordability has not been attained to date. This paper reviews both primary and secondary information gained from the housing industry and assesses the suitability of PPP strategies in delivering affordable housing to low income communities. The results from this study show that less has been achieved in the supply of low cost houses, but instead of a large amount of high cost houses are provided through the PPP method. The main challenges are: (1) inaccessibility to land because land prices are too high, (2) lack of financial support from government and financial institutions because no effective and efficient administration procedures and terms have been developed and applied, (3) costs of building materials are high, and (4) lack of sufficient analytical skills, knowledge and expertise to assess the PPP project proposals. The successful delivery of affordable housing may be made possible by successfully addressing these challenges. This paper presents a proposed PPP modelling, particularly, for the housing industry in Tanzania with a set of control methods developed to control and manage the PPP project process from the planning stage to procurement stage, then to construction stage and finally to operation stage for the purpose of improving the delivery of affordable houses.