Investigating The Level Of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Monitoring Skills Among Civil Servants In Malaysia

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the availability of public sector officials with skills
in monitoring Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects and also to investigate the level of
competency of the officials mentioned above. It is also to report on the progress of this
research in detail. A questionnaire was designed and was checked by several people before it
was finalized and was allowed to be used in the real survey later in this research. The
questionnaire was distributed to three different government offices namely Public Work
Department (PWD), Public Private Partnership Unit (3PU) and Bank Pembangunan Malaysia
Berhad (BPMB). Interview sessions were also done with the high ranking individuals in these
utlices. The interview questions were mainly the same with the questionnaire and additional
questions consisted of more open ended questions to the individuals. From the Pilot Survey
done, it is found that the questionnaires were well designed and it provides the data needed in
this research after it was sent to the targeted otlices. However, slight changes to the
questionnaires were needed and the distribution was also planned well to prevent any bias in
our research. This research is only focuses on the public servants in three different
departments within the public sector which are Public Work Department (PWD), .Public
Private Partnership Unit (3PU) and Bank Pembangunan Malaysia Berhad (BPMB). As a
result, a total of 54 respondents have given their cooperation in completing the questionnaire
and 4 interview sessions were conducted within the three organizations. From the
questionnaires and interview sessions, it was found that there are an adequate number of
people who can handle or monitor PPP/PFI projects. However, the competency level are still
lacking as it is still average among the public servants in Malaysia. Therefore, the objectives
of this research have been fulfilled and it is strongly suggested that further research in
PPP/PFI topic be continued as this is fresh topic in Malaysia.