FACTORS AFFECTING PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION IN BUILD- OPERATE-TRANSFER (BOT) CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

BOT (Build, Operate, Transfer) is a relatively new method of project delivery for the development of infra-structure projects particularly in developing countries. Pakistan is a developing country and the government hardly has the enough budgetary cost to meet development challenges and have financial constraints to carry out the infra-structure development projects. BOT is a substitute way to help the government and to finance development projects without direct consumption of government funds. In the last decade, lots of projects have been launched by the government on BOT modality, but with the exception of few projects, majority of the projects have not commenced yet. The international financers, business enterprises and local construction firms working in Pakistan did not show their expression of interest in most of the BOT projects. Thus, Pakistan is one of those countries, which has never been able to utilize the advantages that could be produced from the BOT construction projects. Keeping this in view, need was felt to carry out a study to explore the factors which hindered the participation of private sector in BOT projects. Extensive literature review was carried out to find out different factors that might hinder the private sector participation. Based on these factors, a questionnaire was developed which included a list of fifty four (54) factors gathered from the previous studies, which were further grouped into five groups. Data was collected through a survey in different cities of Pakistan. After obtaining data from the field survey, reliability test of data was conducted in order to check the reliability of the collected data. Relative Importance Index was used to check the importance of each factor and based on the significance of factors, ranking of the factors was done.