Abstract:

A Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a long-term type of partnership between two or more public and private parties. It is approached to enhance the successful delivery of a project taking into consideration cost, time, and quality. Besides its significant advantages, this type of partnership is very complicated and subjects to many risks and uncertainties due to its long period and a large number of parties and stakeholders involved. Hence, the success of PPPs depends mostly on the risk management capability of the parties within the project. In the Kingdom of Bahrain, the development of new housing projects was approached through PPPs for the first time in 2012 as an attempt to minimize the housing waiting list. The limited experience of the Kingdom in PPPs (ten years only), raises the question of the effective risk management practices used by the parties in PPP housing projects. Therefore, this study was conducted to ensure developers involved in PPP housing projects are mature enough to handle risk management in such complex projects. A survey questionnaire was developed to assess the risk management of the involved developers. To enhance the effectiveness of the assessment tool, a comprehensive literature review was developed to investigate the main attributes or features of risk management in PPP projects and to study the available risk maturity models. Then, an interview with a senior engineer at the Ministry of Housing (MoH) was conducted to comply with Bahrain’s experience in PPPs. A pilot study was also conducted to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire. The questionnaire is useful in identifying the developers’ strengths and weaknesses in the area of risk management and developing improvement plans accordingly. The survey results showed that the developers’ risk management capability is at the initial level (maturity level-2). Although they are aware of the significance of risk management, they do not implement risk management systematically. Therefore, at the end of the research, developers were recommended to continuously improve the risk management system in the organization to ensure its effectiveness. The improvements include creating a risk management team with experts, providing training to improve the employees’ skills, and adopting new tools and technologies.