A Critical Discourse Analysis of Governance Issues Affecting Public Private Partnership Contracting for Information Systems Implementations: A South African Case Study

Public Private Partnership (PPP) contracts have drawn considerable media interest due to a number of problems such as cost overruns, mismanagement and failure. The purpose of this paper is to critically analyse media discourse relating to the failure of a PPP contract between the South African Department of Labour (DOL) and Siemens Information Services (SIS). The contract pertained to the provision and implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services for the DOL. The theoretical foundation for this research is Habermas' theory of communicative action which focuses on normative standards for communication and implications of public speech. Our research builds on a growing literature on critical discourse analysis (CDA) that systematically applies Habermas' validity claims to empirical research on public communication focused on revealing distortions concerning claims of truth, sincerity, legitimacy and comprehensibility. Our study contributes to understanding issues of public accountability of PPP contracts and extends the reach of critical research into PPP contracting for information systems (IS) services and highlights key challenges of the lack of public sector management competences in securing the public interest in PPP engagements.

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