specialise and gain skills in procurement/contract management. OTOH suppliers will have institutional knowledge of the contracts and will be able to slip price rises past civil servants who are rotating in and out of the project.

I'm a big fan of Alon's work and I agree with that post. The challenges that civil servants face in managing large procurement needed for metro projects is important. To advance their careers, civil servants in the UK move every few years between jobs/departments, which means that they don't...