Khatleli, N (2016) The impediments to efficient megaproject implementation in South Africa. In: Chan, P W and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 32nd Annual ARCOM Conference, 5-7 September 2016, Manchester, UK.
Abstract
The infrastructural backlog in South Africa bequeathed by the skewed Apartheid era priorities has meant that the country had to implement several mega-projects in diverse sectors. This was been deemed to be imperative to the country’s economic competitiveness. However the challenges faced by infrastructural mega-projects implementation has resulted in bad publicity, widespread angst over their mounting costs, user indifference because of perceived government whitewash and a lack of a psychological contract with the general populace. The endemic challenges of poor labour-employer relations, skills shortages, the immature levels of business sophistication and innovation and the malignant institutional mission dilution prevalent in transitional economies, have all conspired to make the implementation of these projects very inefficient and contestable. This study is based on two mega-projects in South Africa which were implemented against the backdrop of the aforementioned impediments. The two projects of Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and Medupi Power Station have a huge chunk of their respective budgets going towards the construction of buildings and that makes them very relevant to this sector. The different approaches in addressing the existential and unique challenges during the implementation of these projects are instructive to the implementation of mega-projects in developing countries.What the study found was that there has to be a thorough skills audit in the country for the pertinent skills in the project, skilling the labourers vs outsourcing skilled foreign labourers comparison has to be justified in terms of cost-benefit analysis, a meaningful public participation process encompassing democratic principles has to be implemented, there has to be a certain level of dynamism in the national policies to avoid compromising the quality of the product especially in South Africa where Black Economic Empowerment is an inflexible national aspiration embedded in all projects.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | mega-projects; impediments; efficient; labourers; quality |
| Index terms: | audit, national policy, improvement project, outsourcing, developing country, empowerment, shortages, megaproject, public participation, implementation, South Africa, power station, competitiveness, psychological contract |
| Subjects: | psychology, public policy, participation process, contractual arrangements, strategic project management, economic analysis, business, market analysis, infrastructure and transport systems, management, performance measurement, production management, Geography, development economics |
| Topics: | International Construction, Quality Management, Human Resources, Organizational Design, Engineering Principles, Research Practice, Geographical Context, Project Management, Stakeholder Management, Governance, Procurement |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
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