Regional Stakeholder Perceptions of the Most Important PFI Skills

The Private Finance initiative (PFI) has emerged as the most preferred procurement strategy by governments across the globe for the provision of quality public infrastructure and services. The strategy has evolved due to fiscal constraints and the low quality of publicly provided infrastructures. However, the sojourn into PFI has not been a complete tale of success, with many major infrastructure provided through this strategy being bought back by the public sector in response to public outcry, resulting in the private provider’s inability to recoup their investments and the public sector facing criticism for inefficiency or wrong choice of procurement. This paper sets out to find out from African, Australasian (a combination of Australia & Asia) and Middle East delegates to 2 PFI-Focused conferences Held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia about their perceptions of important skills required by the client in order to ensure success on PFI projects. It was found that stakeholder management skills, bid evaluation skills, sector-specific knowledge, contract management skills and risk identification & management skills were the most important skills which the client requires in order to achieve success in PFI projects as ranked by the various respondents.