Resource information
Until the late 1970s, the Finnish Road
and Waterways Administration (RWA), under Finland's
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC),
operated as a highly centralized, monopolistic agency. The
country's thirteen road management districts had little
or no decision-making authority. Outsourcing construction
works was limited, contracting maintenance services was
rare, and RWA often implemented its road construction
projects using in-house labor and rented machinery and
vehicles. Following the oil crisis of 1974, public resources
were constrained and road expenditure was targeted at
maintenance rather than at new construction. Simultaneously,
RWA's focus shifted to construction management (rather
than actual execution of works) and to maintenance
activities. Outsourcing of planning, design, and
construction services became more prevalent. New, more
user-friendly procurement procedures were introduced,
facilitating the use of private small contractors. This
trend continued through the 1980s, when individual road
districts assumed the practice of slicing up the procurement
of works into sufficiently small contracts to allow small
regional-based contractors to bid for them.
