PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP SOLUTIONS TO WASTE MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN AFRICA

In a number of instances the waste management services in major cities across
Africa is either in a limited state of operation, or has stopped almost completely due to various
reasons. One of the main challenges facing these cities is to start providing such services
again, or to substantially improve the existing services, but within the realities of limited
technical and/or financial resources or institutional capacity.
A number of cases where cities decided to investigate the possibility of using Public
Private Partnership solutions to address their waste management problems are addressed.
Specific problems encountered and also some successes are addressed. The aim of this paper
is not to describe the Public Private Partnership transaction implementation methodologies,
but rather point out some restraints to successful implementation, and also provide some
guidelines to improving the success rate.
One of the biggest challenges of any PPP solution to rendering of municipal services, in
this instance waste collection and disposal services, is to get political buy-in from the officials
and municipal Councillors into the process. PPP solutions, if properly structured and
implemented can limit corruption by putting in enough conditionalities into the contractual
arrangements, and to allow for external monitoring and audits by independent organisations.
In the case of disposal services external monitoring of environmental issues is quite often a
legal requirement as well, and the total audit and monitoring function can be combined.
The paper will also show that PPP solutions are however not necessarily always the best
solution and should only be used when you are sure that the organisation can actually benefit
from a financial benefit from the private partner’s involvement. It is thus important that the
public partner must be able to show, through either a history of honouring their commitments
(including paying in time) or by being flexible enough to allow a system whereby they can
guarantee payments.
The issue of payment for PPP waste services are also addressed as well as the practical
aspects of rendering accounts and collecting the money, which can be a limiting factor. There
are actually a number of pre-paid systems which can be used and are discussed.