‘New policies needed to revive N12 trillion abandoned projects’

With over 56,000 projects abandoned in Nigeria in 20 years and estimated at N12 trillion, according to the Institute of Quantity Surveyors, the government has been urged to formulate policies around project continuity to save cost and thereby, boost the economy.

Speaking at the Project Management Institute (PMI) National Conference, tagged: ‘Addressing project failures through effective project management practices’, the Group Head, Risk Management and Project Monitoring, Access Bank, Dr. Edmund Otaigbe, said it was disheartening that lots of projects in the country are either canceled or abandoned.

He identified poor financial capacity, inaccurate costing and corruption, incompetence and lack of knowledge, poor planning and estimation, poor communication; poor contracting and contractor practices, frequent design scope changes and errors, socio-cultural and political interference, poor leadership and corruption, among others, as causes of project failure.

Otaigbe said the consequences of the contingency has resulted in slow economic growth, wasted resources deployed to abandoned projects and opportunity cost of resources deployed.

He, therefore, called for a national policy to address the problem of project failures, adding that there must be continuity in projects especially in the public sector.

He said: “Repatriation of unexhausted project funds should be based on project status and creation of new projects should consider the aggregate number of existing projects, their status and budgetary provisions.

“Public sector should promote self-liquidating and self-sustaining capital projects through concessions rather than relying on yearly budgetary allocations. Also, Project Management knowledge should be a necessary requirement for key roles in public and private sectors and there should be accountability for Project Managers.

Speaking on “Project failures in Nigeria: The impacts on the growth and development of the public and private sectors,” a professor from Trinity University, Charles Ayo, said the successful execution of projects serves as a visible indicator of development in a country.

He noted that in Nigeria, the majority of projects embarked on by the government are classified as failed projects, adding “Sad still, Nigeria is classified a failed State.”

Ayo said the practice of project management should be incorporated into all sectors of the economy borrowing a leaf from ICAN, adding that inculcating the culture of responsibility, probity, responsibility and accountability in leadership and all sectors of the economy is important.

The don said regardless of a project’s completion time and cost, it could still be considered a failure, if it does not fulfill its required purpose.

He identified poor leadership and corruption, frequent design scope changes and errors, poor contracting and contractor practices, socio-cultural and political interferences, poor financial capacity and political instability, among others as the causes of government project failure.

He added that there are about 1,700 Abandoned NDDC Projects alone in Bayelsa State, while the aviation industry has over 70 project failures.

“Project management doesn’t come cheap—it takes up to 20 percent of the overall project budget. (Better than the avalanche of failed projects). Running a project without solid management, or bad project management, however, will do more harm than good. Enough is enough, Citizens must demand accountability.”

While the vice president of PMI membership and Outreach, Gbolahan Pearl Oyelakin, said there are many projects being implemented across the country in different sectors but many of the handlers are not PMI certified.

He said projects have a way of impacting on the lives of the people either economically or the kind of benefit the projects are expected to deliver. “But the experience we had recently is that these projects have not delivered on the set targets to the people, so we want to rally conversation around this to ensure that we find a way of proffering solutions.

“As professionals and project managers we want to ensure that we come up with solutions whereby we can help the government in the public sector and also private individuals and organizations in ensuring that when they execute projects they achieve success on the project.”

Chapter President of PMI, Paul Omugbe urged the Federal Government to partner with the body to end project failures in private and public sectors in the country.

He said the body is determined to resolve the issues of project failures in both the private and public sectors in Nigeria.

“You cannot be a project manager if you are not certified but what we have in Nigeria is that we have had people who have run projects for 15 years but they are not certified. It makes a difference when someone is certified. For us, we need to push it out there for people to be more certified and to be honest, we have very few certified project managers in Nigeria.”