The project agreements comprise the legally binding contracts that underpin the project. The government project team, with assistance from its legal advisers, should maintain prime responsibility for the drafting of the project agreements.
Shortlisted proponents will be provided with a set of draft project agreements in the binding bid stage and may be given an opportunity to propose amendments to the draft project agreements. Any proposed amendments of a general nature and accepted by the government (in its absolute discretion) will be incorporated into the draft
project agreements and the resultant benchmark project agreements distributed to all shortlisted proponents.
It is intended that the benchmark project agreements will be broadly non-negotiable and that shortlisted proponents will be required to submit a binding bid on this basis.
Nonetheless, and in considering requested changes, the government will have regard to the fact that specific amendments may be necessary to accommodate a particular proponent's bid structure. In such circumstances, Proponents will be required to submit, with their binding bid, a marked up set of project agreements together with a detailed explanation of the requested changes. Any specific amendments required to accommodate the bid structure would be finalised with the proponent.
Any additional changes requested by a shortlisted proponent will be taken into account during the evaluation of its binding bid.
Given the typically long-term nature of many public private partnership arrangements, it is possible that, over time, government may need to redefine the service requirement to meet changing community needs. The project agreements need to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate such changes without unreasonable cost penalties on government and whilst providing fair compensation to the private party.