Examining the effectiveness of public-private partnership (PPPS) financing option in the road construction sector. Case study: Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) financing option in the road construction sector at UNRA and the researcher used the following objectives to meet this purpose; to establish UNRA stakeholders’ perception of the concepts of PPPs, to determine if PPPs are in fact perceived as an effective vehicle for infrastructure delivery by the key stakeholders in UNRA, to determine and identify the barriers faced in the effective implementation of the Public Private Partnerships in UNRA and to examine possible mechanisms to address the barriers faced in the implementation of public private partnership financing arrangements in UNRA. The study adopted exploratory design with the sample size of 104 from target population is 140 respondents who mainly consisted of internal and external UNRA stakeholders that are involved in the implementation of different PPP projects in the roads sector in Uganda at both national and local levels and the study also achieved a response rate of 90%. The study also indicated that more number of respondents were females since there are a few male UNRA stakeholders’ technical professionals in the areas of engineering and surveying, which are the dominant disciplines as far as the target participants from user departments were concerned, a bigger number of respondents were between the age of 30-39 and 20-29, majority of stakeholders were degree level graduates, implying that most respondents were academically qualified and were in position to give a reasonable and well-balanced view on the issues in the study, many of respondents were from other departments of the institution at UNRA. The finding shows that corruption and communication indeed highly affect the PPP models used by UNRA in the roads sector in Uganda and so the results were in line with what the researcher intended to measure. This finding argue that corruption highly influences the context for PPP implementation and sustainability in all countries, that High project costs are a major Barriers for adopting PPP arrangements. This finding conforms that high projects highly negatively affect the adopting PPP arrangements and that Structures must be in place to enable systematic planning and assessment of road project proposals to decide whether they are worth being executed as PPPS. The study recommends that UNRA should always ensure effective risk management for PPP projects by establishing consensus on the transfer of levels of risk to the private partner.