An examination of the capacity building needs of emerging building contractors in the Area of the City of Matlosana Municipality in the North West Province

Abstract

The study examined the capacity building needs of emerging building contractors in the area of the City of Matlosana local municipality. The study was premised on the hypothesis that first, the lack of effective deployment of capacity building resources and systems hampers the efforts to address the capacity building needs of emerging building contractors and second, that poor organisational development, skills and technology contributes to poor service delivery by emerging building contractors. The approach was to look very critically at the failures of these contractors over the last decade, in order that the capacity building needs identified are relevant to improving their competence in complying with the conditions of construction contracts in terms of time, cost and quality specifications. A five-fold approach was used; namely (1) determining broad areas of performance indicators, (2) broadly identifying the requisite standards of performance by benchmarking capacity levels against desired international practices, (3) measuring actual performance through data collection, (4) analyzing data and finally, (5) drawing conclusion and making recommendations. Benchmarking was done by using entrepreneurship performance standards, construction project management best practice, established building industry performance standards, and the expectations and subsequent satisfaction levels of customers and clients. The research methodology used in the study was quantitative in nature, using a questionnaire as the data collection instrument. In addition to the questionnaire, a structured interview was also conducted to collect information particularly from key respondents that play a supportive role to emerging contractors in both the business and the private sector. The target sample was the officials in the government and state enterprise that manage building contractors, professional engineers and project managers, bank managers responsible for bridging finance, the home owners as well as the contractors

themselves. Copies of the survey questionnaire were distributed to 150 respondents and 118 were received back. The data was collected through an approach using the self-administered questionnaires for field workers and analysed using mainly tables. The two key areas of analysis were around issues of skills development as well as the institutional capacity of emerging contractors in the broad key performance areas that were identified in the literature review. The effectiveness and extent of supportive intervention by the South African Government was also analysed as part of an assessment of the external environment. The findings were that the hypothesis was proved to be correct. The emerging building contractors were found to lack competence and institutional capacity to be competitive and profitable in the open market. It was also found that the government had put support mechanisms in place but these were not adequately effective and there was poor coordination among organs of the state and the state-owned enterprises. Three well established social, economic and development theories were confirmed by the findings to be correct. The conclusion was that better management and coordination of institutional support to emerging contractors would yield significantly improved results. The recommendations were very extensive and therefore clustered into five themes dealing with (1) the project failures, (2) the skills development, (3) the organisational development, (4) the external environment and the state-driven interventions and (5) the private sector involvement. Lastly, areas were identified where further research was required.