Authors: 1Dr. David Ackah, PhD. – Inst. of Project Mgt. Professionals, 2Makafui R. Ackah-Accra Technical University, 3Prof. Dr. Allan K. A. Yeboah-OAA Consult Limited
Email: drdavidackah@gmail.com
2017 PROJECT MANAGEMENT PROFESSIONALS ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Madam Chair (Prof. Dr. Mrs. Goski Alabi), the Council Chair of IPMP (Prof. Dr. Allan Kwesi Asante-Yeboah), Member of Parliament, Minority Spokes Person on Finance, and former Deputy Minister of Finance (Hon. Cassiel Ato Forson), Council Members of IPMP, Presidents from other Professional Bodies, Government Officials, Organizational Representatives, Project Management Professionals, All protocols observed, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am humbly to be honoured as one of the speakers of 2017 Project Management Professionals Annual Conference dub “INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN GHANA” to speak on the topic “CAUSES OF PROJECT FAILURE AND ABANDONMENT OF PROJECTS DELIVERABLES IN AFRICA”
Madam Chair, before I go on to speak on the topic, I want to take this opportunity to thank all who have supported IPMP both in cash, kind and advice to ensure the institute survives, we currently have over 200 members with 50 member candidates and still counting, hoping that by the close of this year we would have increase in numbers, built more capacity to take up projects and all related endeavours to change and enhance the development of this country and beyond Africa and the world at large.
Madam Chair the topic causes of project failure and abandonment of projects deliverables has for time now received much media attention in time past and even now, yet no concrete solutions has been provided. I will first of all highlight on the abandonment of project deliverables.
Madam Chair, there are quite a few projects that have been completed successfully and formally handed over to the stakeholders or sponsors and don’t last the original length of period of use, end up failing and abandoned, a typical examples in our country Ghana is the construction of major and minor roads that lacked maintenance policies, and projection.
Majority of these abandoned projects are financed by the tax payers money of the country, the UN, the World Bank, International Agencies and Communities and in all these cases so much millions of dollars are lost annually, what more is that a lot of developing nations are economically retarded, leading to poverty and in human living standards.
Madam Chair How and Why? It is simply because 5 or 10 years national development plans are prepared by nations to help them climb up the “economic development ladder”. These plans include the projections and milestones of when certain projects, which are the building blocks and components of the development plans, will be implemented. When implemented, they help to enhance and facilitate the economy and industrial infrastructure of the nations. The operation of the deliverable could constitute a base, “steps or rungs of ladder” on which other new projects can be implemented. In the event of the failure of the first project, the implementation of the second and subsequent projects cannot happen.
Abandoned deliverables and projects are not strange to nationals of developing countries. Indeed, our industrial landscape is littered with abandoned project deliverables in various stages of disrepair. The common trend running through each of them is that they cannot be repaired and therefore abandoned for good.
To reduce abstract consider a project implementation of an electricity generating power plant of 6 x 250 megawatts. When it is completed, it will feed 1500 megawatts into the national grid. This will help enhance the national power supply, especially its stability since the voltage and frequency can become stable at the rated values. Power supply capacity is increased high enough to feed many users, businesses, and organisations. With such stable power supply, Broadband Internet system can be introduced. Web hosting application in the Cloud can be used by businesses and companies. However, if the power plant is commissioned into operation within six months, and most of the units fail and are abandoned, the power situation in the nation cannot improve. The introduction of Broadband Internet, web hosting and Cloud cannot take place. The nation is back to its pre-power project implementation condition. Progress and economic development are not just at a standstill but are being retarded because of much money that has been invested in the failed power plant to no effect.
Again to be more specific in this scenario, it is the case that at this point of writing, web hosting and Cloud Computing cannot be used in most African countries because the power supply infrastructure to support the technology is not available. It is only in multinational or large organisations, which have their own power supply and not dependent on the national power supply, that such technology is in use. In preparing this write-up, research has been carried out, on some African countries, on some failed and abandoned project deliverables since the objective is to discover the causes of failure of already completed and handed-over deliverables. Some of the findings will be listed and later discussed in depths. This is because it may be relevant to highlight the importance of the project deliverable and then present actual, real-life events that led to their failure and consequent abandonment. At the end of the presentation, an analysis and summary of causes of failure and abandonment of the deliverables will be made. These will constitute lessons learned for our education as investors in developing nations. Hopefully, they could provide guidelines for future investments such that lessons from past failures could help prepare investors and planners for success of new projects.
Keywords: Project Failure, Project Abandonment, Project Incompletion
