A Critical Examination Of Planning Issues Surrounding The Formulation Of Public-Private Partnership Toll Road Projects In Malaysia

In Malaysia since the mid 1980s, Public-Private Partnership (PPP) toll road projects have been implemented as an alternative road system to the existing roads. Although it has been three decades since PPP toll road projects began to be implemented in Malaysia, the government could not implement certain terms in the contract resulting the government to compensate the private companies in the form of cash or in kinds (extension of concession period, tax exemptions, etc). This research was undertaken to investigate the changes within and among the social relations of actors in the public sector that promoted alterations in the formulation of PPP toll road projects in Malaysia. It aims to understand how changes are advocated which alter the dual relationship between social and institutional structures and individual agency in the production and reproduction of institutions. The institutional context for actors’ agency is formed by the policy, legal and regulatory and organisational frameworks. Over time in the PPP process, changes have taken place in these three frameworks which promoted and motivated changes in actors’ assumptions and rationales for action. These changes have resulted in alterations to the terms of the Concession Agreement (the agreement which stipulates the obligations between the public sector and private sector which governs the PPP toll road projects until the end of the concession period) which are being used for all the new PPP toll road project negotiations. Since this research is interested in the establishment and changes to actor’s social relations which are influenced by institutions, institutional theory is employed, while structuration theory provides a lens to look into changes over time.