When the public has increased expectations for timely and high standard service delivery, the onus is on the government to find innovative approaches to meet those expectations. Entering into a partnership with the private sector for major public capital projects is one of them. PPPs are being established not only to provide finance for public infrastructure, but also to explore the private sector's management, commercial and creative skills. Only when the strengths of the public and the private sectors are combined will these major public capital projects be delivered on time and on budget and the government will achieve 'value for money' (Nisar, 2007).
Governments have several challenges to overcome before they consider PPPs as the preferred method to deliver high standard services to the public. One of the challenges is greater stakeholder involvement in the decision making process when the partnership is being established (Teicher et al., 2006). Risk allocation is another area that needs to improve. The literature suggests that the party that is in the best position to manage the risk at the lowest cost should be responsible for it (Jones, 2005; Nisar, 2007).
The potential benefits of PPPs are significant. In order for these benefits to be accomplished the concept needs to be modified to embrace the principles of enhanced partnership models such as alliance contracting. In addition to this, the focus should be placed on learning from previous experience and implementing changes on a regular basis due to the fact that economic conditions constantly change. To achieve this, evaluation and auditing of PPPs should be improved substantially (Hodge & Greve, 2007; Johnston & Gudergan, 2007).