Public-private partnership
Question One
Value creation is an essential concept in the contemporary world given its focus on ensuring quality service and products through effective and efficient utilization of the available scarce resources. Governments are in existence to ensure order and create value for individual stakeholders in the society by providing the necessary services and products that can empower them to realize their full potential economically and socially (Delmon, 2017 13). Through this they are to provide necessary social amenities and relevant infrastructures to effectively create value to the citizens and enhance their living standards. However, there are instances when governments are incapacitated to provide the necessary social amenities and infrastructures as seen in Lebanon’s case. Under such special circumstances public-private partnership is essential in providing the necessary infrastructure and social amenities that can help in value creation for individual citizens.
Public-private partnership (PPP) is a collaborative agreement between two or more private and public service sectors to provide services such as infrastructure due to the inability of the government to fund and oversee the provision of such services. The primary objective of PPP is to ensure the effective provision of necessary infrastructure and social amenities like water and sewage systems, hospitals, transport systems, and schools, among others (Wang et al., 2018, 297). These consequently ensure a seamless flow of systems and procedures within a country, which guarantees effective social and economic empowerment of communities to achieve improved living standards and the creation of employment opportunities.
Through these it is clear that the majority of governments involved in public-private partnerships are concerned about enhancing the country’s economy to foster growth. As such, the governments use the private sector providers for the delivery of auxiliary services, especially where the private sector has a comparative advantage, and risks can be easily shared. Besides, unethical conduct like corruption cripples the development efforts made by the government among several nations. Similarly, the government might also lack the capacity to provide these services in a cost-effective manner due to poor management of funds and over-borrowing. Under such circumstances public-private partnership is always viewed as the best alternative in ensuring effective provision of the necessary infrastructure and social amenities. This is because the public-private partnership ensures accountability, which is essential in reducing such unethical conduct and enhancing service and product provision to create value for individuals in the community in a cost-effective manner. The shared responsibility between the government and the private sector as a result of public-private partnership also eliminates some of these factors that hinder better delivery of services to the society.
There are always six major bases that must be observed to ensure effective collaborative inertia in a public-private partnership. The first of these bases involves the introduction of both the public and private players in a proposed PPP to the concepts and objectives involved. The introduction part is important as it enables parties involved to evaluate and analyze the situations that they are faced with, terms of the partnership, and the goals that they intend to achieve in the long run. Developing a common ground for studying and making preparations to undertake the joint project between the public and private sectors forms the second base (Nguyen, Garvin and Gonzalez, 2018, 40). This is essential since both the private and public sectors have different ways of conducting their operations; hence for the sake of the joint project, it is imperative that they must come up with an effective plan that brings them to work together.
The third base for effective collaboration between the public and private players involves the identification and selection of the best private player that can guarantee the effective provision of infrastructure and social amenities. This solely relies on the systems and procedures within an individual government and the type of services needed. The fourth base is the guarantee of the PPP project in enhancing the outcomes of the collaborative advantage. It primarily focuses on outlining the shared responsibilities of the two parties and the amount of risk that each party is willing to take. The fifth base is the guarantees that the joint partnership project offers. In this case, the private and public sector must look into the return on investment that they receive from the project (Osei-Kyei. and Chan, 2017, 115). A discussion of the supervision and project follow-up is also a crucial base for collaborative advantage as it helps in ensuring that all parties are held accountable for the project responsibilities that they undertake.
In most cases, PPPs lead to collaborative inertia when there exists an authority that takes charge of the planning and implementation of the privatization programs. For the Lebanon case study, a PPP law was drafted to provide guidelines for forming the public-private partnership. The primary objective of this law is to regulate the activities and responsibilities of the two parties to ensure that they work in harmony towards creative value to the Lebanese. This would be essential in rebuilding the country’s infrastructure that had been significantly damaged by the several civil wars witnessed in the country. The PPP laws will also enhance transparency and competence among the partnering public and private entities to ensure efficient management of the projects (Wang et al., 2018, 312). To gain a collaborative advantage, the PPP project must be guided by the six significant bases that guide the formulation of effective collaboration as well as observe the country’s PPP law. The main objective of the public-private partnership is to complement the government’s efforts in building quality infrastructure, creating job opportunities, and stimulating the country’s economic growth.
Question Two
The concept of power is always essential in ensuring the effectiveness of all systems and procedures. In collaboration, power is often viewed as a form of domination, authority, or control. As such, individuals or entities that have more influence over others are considered as powerful, while the ones that are power-dominated are considered powerless. Through this, there are always three forms of power in a public-private partnership. These include Power over, power to, and power for. This part of the discussion aims at identifying the three types of powers and the one that is relevant to the private sector.
In most instances, the concept of power is understood in regards to power over. Power over is built on the premises of using force, domination, gaining control, and coercion. The use of force to gain control and influence other people is what constitutes the concept of power over. On the other hand another form of power is power to. Power to is a reproductive or generative way of using authority. The ability to implement new possibilities without using force or domination over others is what constitutes power to. The last form of power in a public-private partnership is power for. It is a concept of power based on the ability to form relationships and collaborations. It is also built on the basis of mutual support, collaborative decision making, influence, shared power, and respect, among other attributes.
In forming collaborations with the public sector, is it imperative for the private players to use an appropriate type of power that enhances equal sharing of responsibilities and mutual respect among them. The public sector is famously known for its ability to dominate over other sectors. As such, for the case of public-private partnerships, the private sector must ensure that it uses its power in equal measures to ensure that both parties adequately address all shortcomings of the projects, and they all take an acceptable significant risk. The public-private partnership aims at serving the country’s economy as a whole by offering benefits for the general public, government, and consumers. However, the partnership involves sharing of risks and benefits according to agreed terms with the government (Raven, 2017, 173). Therefore, to reduce the government’s dominance over the joint project’s risks and benefits, the private sector uses the concept of power for, where it advocates for equality and building of mutually beneficial relationships with the government.
The private sector significantly utilizes the concept of power for as its preferred form of power in a public-private partnership. This ensures it addresses the shortcomings in such collaborations and ensures that it takes an acceptable significant risk. The concept of power for is also significantly used to enhance cooperation and equal sharing of responsibilities between the partnering private and public sectors, which is ideal for private players in such agreements (Fiske and Hancock, 2016, 31).
The concept of power for help in building bridges within groups such as organizations and social institutions. As such, instead of dominating and forcefully gaining control over others, power for seeks to form a collective action and encourages all parties to act together towards achieving a common objective. In the public-private partnership, both the public and private sectors have purposes that they intend to achieve. These objectives can only be achieved through the sharing of responsibilities and creating room for each party to perform their duties without interference. Therefore, in advocating for equal sharing of partnership responsibilities, the private sector uses power for to ensure that the public sector honors its end of the deal and per takes to its project responsibilities fully (Raven, 2017, 190). Besides, the private sector does not have control over the activities and decisions of the public sector. However, the public sector has control over the activities of the private sector. Therefore, to avoid power interference from the public sector, the private sector uses power for to define boundaries for engaging in the joint project and to prevent manipulation by the public sector.
The Lebanon government does not have the capacity to enhance the quality level of its services and infrastructure to the Lebanese. As such, it greatly depends on its partnership with the private sector to enhance the provision of these services. The joint projects are often of a long-term nature, and their execution is associated with numerous complexities and sometimes, it becomes difficult to identify possible contingencies (Osei-Kyei and Chan, 2017, 120). Failure in such collaborative efforts always results from the inability of either the government or the private players to meet their objectives as a result of external influence as well as from a change in government policies. To avoid unfair distribution of liabilities, the private sector uses power for to influence the government’s actions and decisions.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Delmon, J., 2017. Public-private partnership projects in infrastructure: an essential guide for policymakers. Cambridge university press.
Fiske, J., and Hancock, B.H., 2016. Power plays power works. Routledge.
Nguyen, D.A., Garvin, M.J., and Gonzalez, E.E., 2018. Risk allocation in US public-private partnership highway project contracts. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 144(5), p.04018017.
Osei-Kyei, R., and Chan, A.P., 2017. Implementing public-private partnership (PPP) policy for public construction projects in Ghana: critical success factors and policy implications. International Journal of Construction Management, 17(2), pp.113-123.
Raven, B.H., 2017. The comparative analysis of power and power preference. In Social power and political influence (pp. 172-198). Routledge.
Wang, H., Xiong, W., Wu, G., and Zhu, D., 2018. Public-private partnership in public administration discipline: A literature review. Public management review, 20(2), pp.293- 316.