Enhancing accountability in public–private partnerships in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa, like other developing countries, has joined other nations around the world in resorting to public–private partnerships (PPPs) as an integral strategy to improve its deeply rooted socio-economic, political, fi scal and societal problems and to meet the pressure of attaining the goals of national and international developmental projects. In spite of the reasons advanced for the importance of PPPs as an alternative service-delivery option, several doubts about the effi cacy of accountability and suggestions that it may undermine public control have been expressed. Given the importance of accountability, this paper seeks to determine some approaches to enhance accountability in public–private partnerships in South Africa. It identifi es some of the accountability challenges and suggests ways of overcoming them.

Key words: public–private partnership, accountability, South Africa, democracy, community participation