Construction industry incompetent

The continued concern among stakeholders in the supply and demand side of project delivery chain has led researchers to investigate root causes of poor delivery of public construction projects in Botswana.

University of Botswana civil engineers Joseph Segawa and Alfred Ngowi found in their 2008 study that the unstructured and unorganised environment is a contributory factor and that the industry lacks organisation to provide effective leadership and vision. The observation is that most problems are tackled in an adhoc manner and the industry lacks a holistic approach when handling most problems. On the performance of projects, it was found that only eight percent of them were delivered within time and cost. In addition, only 15 percent were delivered in time and 35 percent delivered within the agreed cost. One important emphasis is the departure from what seems to be an accepted norm in the industry.

That is, clients have got every right to change the scope as they please because ‘the project is theirs.’ The researchers’ position is that it does not matter whether the client initiated or accepted the change of scope from consultant as changes during construction phase bring disruptions to cost and time. The study was divided into two phases, being the preliminary and the final. The former investigated perceptions of various stakeholders in the industry regarding the factors leading to poor delivery of public projects. They included DBES, local authorities, local government and finance and development planning ministries and service providers. The second phase validated the perceptions obtained from findings of the first phase. The study found that there is lack of human capacity in terms of sufficient numbers to roll out projects in the NDPs and to plan and monitor ongoing projects.

There was also a lack of initial project details at the pre-design, which made the brief un-comprehensive and later brought about scope changes. The study further saw a serious lack of coordination of parties related to a project, for example, a utility company delaying a project as a result of their inaction to relocate their service lines. There were also instances where investors with multi-companies used them for tendering and thus creating a false impression of competition. Some were using them to avoid sanctions after poor project delivery. A conflicting role of the public procurement and asset disposal board to register contractors and at the same time award bids is also a problem. It was felt that the awarding should be separated from registration as it happens in other jurisdictions like South Africa and Tanzania.

What leads to poor performance?
The study puts blame on consultants for lack of proper registration of professionals resulting in qualifications not being thoroughly checked to determine their appropriateness to offer professional service. Proliferation of incompetent consultants arising from a lack of policing mechanism was also an identified loophole. Contractors also contribute massively to poor performance due to their lack of skills in all key project management processes and skilled personnel in the firm. Overstretching organisational capacity with many jobs at a time or with jobs that are at distant locations also contributes to shoddy jobs. Failure to supply materials that meet the specifications, particularly strength, which cannot be checked or verified by visual was an error identified with material suppliers.

Another disturbing issue frequently mentioned in the business environment was the manner in which Chinese companies operate, described often as uncompetitive. In an interview, Asphalt Botswana managing director Roddy Whittaker cited late payment by clients, either government or private, as a challenge. “Sometimes they do not pay at all and we have to pursue the recovery,” he said. Shortage of contracts is also a problem. Government is his major client and failure to get works forces him to diversify. For Excavator Hire managing director Clive Evans, the construction industry is  ‘a boom or bust’ situation where the workload is not consistent. He explains that there is either too much or too little for little money. His observation is that during elections, that is when contactors get jobs. Actually, after being too slow for the past six months, he is working on three tenders this week. His main client is government.

The study recommends that both central and local clients need to increase their capacity, efficiency in managing the inception, planning and implementation phases by recruiting qualified and experienced staff. Performance must be emphasised to ensure that the required output of work and efficiency in processing project-related decisions and transactions are achieved from the personnel. A legally constituted construction industry development board should be established which will be an umbrella body to oversee the industry activities and issues and take care of all its stakeholders. In the last decade, the average contribution of the construction industry to GDP has been on average, about 6.6 percent while its absorption of labour has annually averaged at 9 percent. In 2003 for example, the sector contributed about P1, 005 million to the GDP and employed about 29 000 people.