Civil Engineering October 2021 | Vol 29 No 9

Civil Engineering October 2021 25 project management criteria (time, cost and quality) were used to investigate this objective. The study showed that built en- vironment professionals with experience working on or associated with municipal projects in South Africa agreed that most municipal projects fail on all three of these criteria. However, the extent of the failure varies from criterion to criterion. The built environment professionals agreed that the worst-performing criterion is meeting the project timeline, followed by exceeding the project budget and then not achieving the specified quality requirements. Finishing a project on time and within budget stood out as the most important criteria for project success and, as such, municipal project managers and programme coordinators need to incor- porate better planning, monitoring and control principles to fulfil these criteria. This study also confirmed that political interference, poor planning, strikes by em- ployees, corruption, delay in payments and weather conditions top the list of causes of municipal project failure in South Africa. Based on the findings of this research, several recommendations can be made, which may contribute to reducing project failure rates at a municipal level in South Africa: Q Q The role and level of authority of politicians in municipal projects must be clearly defined and boundaries drawn to reduce the number of failing municipal projects due to political interference. Politicians should focus on offering support to the project team and liaise with the community where the project is undertaken and allow the technocrats and project staff respon- sible for the project to do their job. Q Q The project procurement phase must be explicit and monitored by an ex- ternal company with no affiliations to the government. This will guarantee improvement in selecting contrac- tors and consultants for the project, thereby reducing the level of corrup- tion and appointment of inexperienced or incompetent resources. Q Q Project planning must carefully include weather considerations as part of the risk management of the project. Again, this reinforces the need for competent and experienced project staff. Q Q Timelines and regular payment periods must be part of the contractual agree- ment between the municipality and the contractor to ensure adequate cashflow for the contractor in order to pay wages and salaries on time. This will ensure that workers are paid appropriately to reduce the frequency of employee strikes. Q Q Harsher and clearly defined penalties should be specified for contractors who abuse municipal funding through failure to produce the specified project deliverables. These penalties should include a multi-year ban from tendering for any future government projects. Q Q There must be an efficient and effective project funding process with proper auditing that allows payments to the contractors or consultants to be made on time. This will reduce project time overruns and contractors abandoning projects due to cash flow difficulties. REFERENCES Due to space constraints, the full list of references is not published here, but may be obtained from the authors on request. Table 2 Internal causes of construction project failure at a municipal level Factors Frequency Percent Rank Poor planning 46 62.2 1 Corruption 41 55.4 2 Delay in payments 35 47.3 3 Delay in approval of change in orders 33 44.6 4 Poor communication 31 41.9 5 Poor site management 30 40.5 6 Interference from construction mafia 30 40.5 6 Suspension of work 29 39.2 8 Insufficient funds 26 35.1 9 Major disputes and negotiations 25 33.8 10 Inefficient management skills 24 32.4 11 Scope creep 22 29.7 12 Ineffective financial plan 22 29.7 12 Inaccurate cost estimation 22 29.7 12 Failure to pay 30% to the community 19 25.7 15 Unrealistic expectations 19 25.7 15 Delay in decision making 18 24.3 17 Difficulties in financing project 16 21.6 18 Delaying in issuing construction drawings 16 21.6 18 Late in revising design documents 15 20.3 20 Inadequate experience 15 20.3 20 Delay in performing inspection and testing 14 18.9 22 Unclear scope and goals 13 17.6 23 Conformance to specifications 12 16.2 24 Inefficient reporting, monitoring and evaluating project 11 14.9 25 Mistakes and discrepancies in contract document 8 10.8 26 Table 3 Internal causes of construction project failure at a municipal level Factor Frequency Percent Rank Political interference 47 63.5 1 Strikes (employee strikes) 44 59.5 2 Weather conditions 35 47.3 3 Unforeseen ground conditions 32 43.2 4 Economic environment 20 27.0 5 Bureaucracy 17 23.0 6 Regulatory/legal environment 9 12.2 7 Change in government regulations and laws 8 10.8 8