Managerial implications of municipal infrastructure projects in Dr Kenneth Kaunda District, South Africa

Abstract

Municipal infrastructure projects in South Africa are not managed properly and their cost could result in a huge financial burden on the country's economy. This is because the national government is responsible for funding municipalities through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) to provide services. Lately, the MIG expenditure has been escalating due to inter alia ineptitude of project managers to meet planned expenditure targets. Findings show that municipalities in Dr Kenneth Kaunda District are inundated by institutional capacity constraints, which create major risks for the implementation of municipal infrastructure projects. Challenges exist in the municipal infrastructure delivery process, especially in planning, budgeting and management of finances. Incompetency amongst project consultants is also a serious issue affecting the successful completion of municipal infrastructure projects. All this inevitably causes delays as poorly planned projects cannot be budgeted for; budgets are regularly miscalculated; funds are not availed in time; and procurement processes are inappropriately done. It was also found that municipalities have good strategies in place. However, regardless of the availability of good strategies, without a clear execution plan the goodness of the strategy means nothing. Again well formulated IDPs that are not effectively executed will still make communities dissatisfied. It can therefore be concluded that implementation of professional project management in municipal projects could significantly improve the management abilities of the municipalities and consequently deliver the incredible value of project management to the communities.