The-Accountant-Jul-Aug-2017

Governance
Nairobi University
to accommodate the growing number
of students due to limited enrolment
capacities. Collaborations between
the public and private sector can be a
solution to the under-investment and
poor maintenance of infrastructure in the
Education sector.
This tremendous expansion of
undergraduate education when combined
with declining funding translates to more
and more students being admitted to
institutions that were originally designed
to accommodate far fewer students. So
severe is the crisis of overcrowding that it is
not uncommon to find students standing
inside or outside of lecture halls or even
perched on windows during lectures. The
period between the end of one lecture and
the beginning of another is particularly
chaotic as students simultaneously
attempt to fill and vacate lecture halls or
simply jump in or out through windows
to guarantee them seats and space.
Benefits accruing from
partnerships
Resources
Public-Private-Partnerships provide
opportunities for development
corporations to harness private enterprise
as a means towards economic and social
development of their host universities.
This implies that PPPs lead to economic
development of the institutions in which
they are implemented. PPPs lead to
resource mobilization through sharing
thus enabling Projects to be initiated and
completed. Private sectors integrate all
community stakeholders in an economy in
a way that they all benefit by pooling their
resources and sharing. Public-Private-
Partnerships involve design, construction,
financing, operation and maintenance
of public infrastructure and facilities, or
the operation of services, to meet public
needs. With PPPs public universities’
needs can be easily met due to the synergy
created when the two come together. Also
Public-Private Partnerships brings on
board best procurement practices which
prevent loss of public resources. The
public sector is well known for flawed
procurement processes, thus partnering
with the private sector will help solve
this problem. Public-Private-Partnerships
enable the public sector to leverage more
financial resources by using the private
sector as an intermediary. This shows
the synergy created when the two come
together as they exploit the strengths
of each other. They promote technical
efficiency among public projects. They
further point out that the rationale for
partnering with the private sector is to
bridge the deficit and budget shortfall
thus enabling the Government to meet
the citizens’ demand.
Expertise
A well planned and adequately structured
Public-Private-Partnership arrangement
should efficiently and effectively achieve
superior results than the traditional
public sector infrastructure financing
approaches. This is because the Public-
Private-Partnership approach strives
to harness a wide range of managerial,
commercial and technical skills of the
private sector while benefiting from the
low risk, socio-political goodwill and the
lower cost of capital of the public sector.
This combination is expected to enhance
time, quality and cost efficiency of
resultant projects. The private sector has
better technology, management skills and
experience. This shows that the private
sector is better placed to handle expertise
issues in infrastructure development
compared to the public sector thus
necessitating the need to partner. Studies
have shown that PPPs yield financial
expertise, superior technology and proper
management techniques that exceed the
capabilities of an individual government
agency or department.
JULY - AUGUST 2017 27