A Review of Kenya’s Public Private Partnerships legal framework for implementing infrastructure projects by county governments
Date
2021
Authors
Kaburu, Mildred Gakii
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Strathmore University
Abstract
A Public Private Partnership (PPP) allows a public authority to benefit from the participation of the private sector in managing and financing public service expansion by outsourcing risk and by harnessing the innovative capacity and capital of the private sector. Consequently, the public agency can focus on policymaking, planning, and regulation. Thus, the PPP model can hasten delivery to curb Africa’s current dreary state of infrastructure. Therefore, this study examines the legal, institutional and procedural framework for carrying out PPPs at the county level in Kenya. The aim is to find out whether the current legislative framework is one of the key causes for the low uptake of PPPs at county level despite the apparent benefits of PPPs as a means for sourcing funds for infrastructure development. This study compares the legal framework for carrying out PPPs by South Africa and Nigeria which are the two African countries that have achieved great success in their local PPP projects and are the market leaders in infrastructure development in Africa. The study’s key finding is that the Kenyan PPP laws should be customized to suit County Governments because they are constitutionally mandated to provide critical services through infrastructure development. The study recommends the implementation of some of the lessons learnt from the two countries such as to customize the legal, institutional and procedural framework and for PPP arrangements by county governments in Kenya and to have the national government have a supportive role rather than a supervisory role in county government PPP projects.
Description
Submitted to the Faculty of Law in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the Master of Laws (LLM), at Strathmore University
Keywords
Public Private Partnership (PPP), Legal framework, Infrastructure projects, County governments