Public Private Partnership Projects in Canada: Three Decades of Rich Experience

Sumit Barua, PMP is a PPP and infrastructure finance practitioner. He has over seven years’ experience in the PPP domain. He has worked as a senior financial analyst with The City of Calgary, Canada and as a PPP expert with Asian Development Bank in India. He has been part of teams that have closed a number of PPP projects successfully.

  Government   Innovation   Procurement Management   Strategy   Knowledge Shelf  

Introduction
This article covers the ecosystem of Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in Canada and discusses various participants active in the PPP market.

Developed and developing nations are targeting higher and more sustainable economic growth that requires a high infrastructure investment, but results in a deficit in the infrastructure budget. Public Private Partnership (PPP) has been seen as a financing tool to help bridge this gap, as well as a method for cost-effective and quality service delivery.

PPP as an Alternate Procurement Option
PPP (P3) is a long-term, performance-based approach where the private sector assumes a major share of the responsibility in terms of risk and financing for the delivery and performance of the infrastructure from design through to construction and long-term maintenance, as well as operation in some cases. An optimum PPP structure with maximum risk transfer results in positive Value-for-Money (VfM) for the taxpayers.

Key Elements of PPP
There are distinct differences between a traditional design-build (DB) approach and PPP. In DB, the contractor is paid for the work performed and the asset is handed over to the government for managing the same throughout its life. In PPP, the partner is responsible and involved throughout the life of the asset. In a PPP arrangement, there is a legal contract to deliver a public service …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.