Contract awards for the public transport public-private partnership (PPP) advisory roles in Mecca, Jeddah, Medina and Dammam are likely to be delayed until next year.

The National Centre for Privatisation (NCP), Saudi Arabia’s public-private partnership (PPP) procurement entity, initially planned to award the contracts a month after it received bids for the scheme's technical, legal and financial advisory roles on 12 October.

“It seems they have bigger things to worry about [in Saudi Arabia] at the moment,” a source familiar with the transaction tells MEED, alluding to the ongoing anti-corruption drive impacting even the development pace of the kingdom's  public transport programme.

The roles sought by the NCP are expected to treat each of the four public transport projects, which all have a metro component, individually.

The contract duration is intended to last for up to six years.

The NCP said it will hire three other consultants namely commercial, environmental and insurance advisers for the project.

MEED understands the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MOEP), the government ministry overseeing NCP, commissioned a study in 2016 with respect to the review and optimisation of the planned public transport systems across the four cities.

Prior to this, the four schemes were developed independently by each municipal transport authority.

Of the four public transport schemes, the metro component of the Mecca Public Transport Programme was the most advanced.

The Mecca Metro was initially planned as a PPP with UK-based consultancy EY and law firm Ashurst and the US’ Parsons Brinckerhoff appointed as transaction advisers for the project in March 2011. A feasibility study for the metro was prepared by a joint venture of France’s Systra and the US-based Aecom, who were appointed as consultants in April 2012. However, the plans to develop the Mecca Metro on a PPP basis were dropped after the government decided to fund the scheme directly in 2013.

Engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts worth an estimated $8bn for the civil works, rolling stock and systems of the metro’s lines B and C were expected to be awarded in late 2015 but were put on hold.

The privatisation of the kingdom’s mainline rail networks is also under way. The Public Transport Authority (PTA) expects to tender the consultancy packages for four mainline rail and logistics schemes, whose budgets are estimated at roughly $20bn, in mid-2018.