Why the private sector is more efficient than government

Many years ago I was working as a Project Manager on a governement roadway project. I would prefer not to to get into specifics for obvious reasons. It came to my attention from another Project Manager a watermain(A pipe that feeds water to faucets, showers, etc) was going to be constructed and cross the roadway we were about to construct.

The other Project Manager and I agreed we could save a lot of construction money if we could either construct the section of watermain that crosses the road prior to the road construction(the absolute least expensive construction option) or at least install a mechanism(A sleeve for anybody interested) for crossing the road inexpensively at some time in the future. It was especially true at this time and still true to a lesser degree today that a new pipe crossing a roadway without a sleeve is expensive.

We went to the government representatives for each of the projects. The government representative for the roadway agreed to construct whatever we need but will need a small amount of money from the other project. We thought "fair enough" cause that is going to save the other project substantial construction costs, on the order of about $35,000.00 or more.

Well the government representative for the watermain project basically told us all the paperwork he would have to fill out is not worthwhile. $35,000.00 of our taxpayers dollars and it is not worth the time to fill out 3 or 4 pages of paperwork. The end result was the taxpayers paid $35,000.00 more than they had to.

I have since transitioned my work into the private sector and can attest that if these were two private companies working for a profit they would have worked it out for $35,000.00. Probably each would have saved $17,500.00 more or less with negotiations.