Factors Jeopardizing The Success Of Public-private Partnership Projects In Kenya,Case Study Of Roads And Railways Infrastructure Investments

Governments around the world have come under pressure from her citizens to provide public services,these infrastructural investment projects require a huge amount of finance which in most cases is not available especially in developing countries.Due to this,many countries have decided to partner with the private sector in providing public services.Around the globe,PPP has become more popular in the delivery of infrastructure investments.PPP is a long-term contractual agreement under which private entity delivers public services over a specified period of time and paid by end-users,public sector,or a hybrid of both,the private sector supplies public service per the specifications given by the contracting authority.The adoption of the PPP framework in Kenya shows the government’s commitment to provide quality,cost-effectiveness and timely delivery of roads and railways infrastructure in the country.However,in some cases,PPP projects have failed to deliver as expected.They have become more costly,failed to meet the demand and standards as specified in the contract document.This research work specifically focuses on factors jeopardizing the success of public-private partnership projects in Kenya,case study of roads and railways infrastructure investments.The objectives of this research were to investigate the regulatory environment of public-private partnerships in Kenya,the economic factors derailing PPP projects in Kenya,investigate the PPPs procurement process in Kenya and investigate factors hindering PPP project implementability in Kenya.The researcher embraced both descriptive and case study approaches to give complete descriptions of the topic under study whereby a sample size of 30 respondents in the ministry of finance,PPPU was selected and field research was conducted on three roads;Thika superhighway;NakuruNairobi highway and Garissa-Malindi Highway.Response rate of 66.67%(20 out of 30)was recorded,the data received from the questionnaires received plus the field research conducted was sufficient for data analysis.The data was analyzed using excel and presented in percentages,tables,frequency,and charts.From the responses,it is clear that many employees working in PPPU have experience and the academic qualifications required.The researcher sought responses to the challenges facing PPP projects.The analysis concluded that the economic factors,procurement process,regulatory environment,and project implementability are the main challenges affecting roads and railways PPP projects in Kenya.The regulatory environment was described to have impractical PPP policies and strategies,government defective PPP policy and strategy,poor and insufficient legal institutional framework,and political unwillingness.The results also showed that there is a strong correlation coefficient between the variables.This means that an effect on one factor will affect all the other factors hence making the project to fail.