Public Infrastructure Project Tendering Through Public Private Partnerships (PPP) – A Literature Review

Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in Malaysia have been inundated by various controversies and criticisms from the very beginning. Many of the constraints that occur in PPP projects is due to the failure in tendering stage. Bidding or tender for a PPP project is usually much more complex than a traditional public-sector project involving the appointment of top advisers and designers at a great fee in the preparation of detailed design, comprehensive planning, extensive bid documentation, and lengthy clarifications. These problems as being the reason behind several high-profile withdrawals during the early PPP tenders, resulting in some preferred bidders being selected by defaults as other competitors withdrew. Base on the above premise, this study attempts to propose PPP tendering process improvement in Malaysian construction industry. This paper aims at providing an overview about literature on tendering process in PPP/PFI. The objectives of the research are to identify and understand the PPP implementation practices in Malaysia; to determine issues and challenges in PPP tendering stage; and to propose PPP tendering improvement. The approach is based on the analysis of the pertinent publications on the theme. Three main interest areas can be found in the literature which is; tendering procedure, issues and challenges, and strategies that could be enhance PPP tendering process in the Malaysian construction industry.