Abstract:

Public infrastructure provision in Malaysia has been one of the government’s priorities in ensuring the better development of the nation. Nevertheless, the curtailments in the government’s budget as well as the major downturn in the global economy have significantly affected the public infrastructure provision. Therefore, the government has invited the private concessionaires to partake in the provision of the public infrastructure projects via Public Private Partnership (PPP) in reducing the government’s burden, yet minimal is responded. Among the reasons obstructing the private concessionaires’ participation is the negative perception by the concessionaires on the development of monopolies by certain groups of private concessionaires embedded in the public infrastructure provision in Malaysia which consequently reduces the healthy competition among concessionaires and ultimately demotivates the concessionaires to participate in the public infrastructure provision. Thus, this paper is materialized with the aim of developing the framework of relational contract elements in public infrastructure project provision, which are observed as the better solution for this dilemma. Questionnaire surveys on 22 respondents of construction industry players are undertaken to determine the elements of relational contract suitable to be adopted in public infrastructure provision in Malaysia in encouraging the involvement of private concessionaires. The results show that relational contract elements of clearly defined scope, integrated project team, mutual alignment of goals and open honest communication should be included in the relational contract elements frameworks due to its potential in overcoming the current recession of private concessionaire’s initiatives and ultimately improving the public infrastructure provision in Malaysia.