We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
-Plato
In amongst the roles played by PPP institutions, this section will review methods for the Government to support project preparation and implementation, following pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, project preparation, the procurement process for PPP projects, and the implementation and monitoring of PPP projects.
Competitive procurement of PPP involves careful preparation, reviewing risks and their allocation, identifying market requirements and creating a competitive process for selection of the right private partner. In its most basic form, the tender (or bid) process involves a party offering a project to the market and asking for bids from parties interested in performing the project, or some part of the project. Tendering (or bid) procedures are meant to achieve efficiency, manage costs, maintain quality, encourage expediency and maximise valuefor-money. PPP transactions take time to prepare, and need the attention of experts to ensure that risks and financing are managed properly and efficiently and taken to market in a form and manner designed to attract as many high quality bidders as possible and thereby keep costs down and improve delivery.
Figure 4.1 provides a depiction of institutional functions and maps them against the different phases of project development, as per the PPP program in South Africa.