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This book examines the major aspects of the relationship between government and the private sector in the provision of high quality, sustainable, and affordable privately funded infrastructure projects. The form of this partnership is often seen as a major determinant of the project risk distribution among the various parties involved, and will thus be crucial in attracting both high quality developers/operators and external institutional funding. Proper consideration of this issue, bearing in mind geographical location, the ruling political and economic climate, and the project characteristics is therefore perceived to be one of the most crucial aspects of the procurement process.
In the UK the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has concentrated primarily upon developing a partnership in project funding, but elsewhere in the world the long-term use of concession contracts and the build/operate/transfer (BOT) family of approaches have shown the need for partnerships which go beyond simply project funding.
Some of the basic issues concerning the structure of the public/private partnership were introduced in the author`s earlier title Privatized infrastructure: the BOT approach. This new book, Privatized infrastructure: the role of Government, develops these concepts further through a combination theory and case studies of completed projects drawn from various parts of the world over and extended period of time.
Privatized infrastructure: the role of Government begins with a historical review of the development of government`s role in the provision of primary infrastructure, and goes on to examine the relevance of this role in present day projects. It specifically considers key issues which might give rise to conflicts of interest such as project promotion, evaluation and responsibility.
The book is a timely arrival in a rapidly developing field of growing interest for the academic and professional engineer worldwide. It will be of interest to students as well as to practitioners and contractors who are either interested in or already involved in this type of work.
