WATER & WASTEWATER
Project management – the key to service delivery South Africa is a water-scarce countr y and the management of its water sources as well as related supply and treatment infrastructure will always be a critical priority. By Leslie van Zyl-Smit*
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he recent drought conditions experienced in large parts of South Africa have had a negative impact on water supply, as well as most sectors of the economy, including agriculture, industry, tourism and food security. As part of the South African government’s drought relief measures, numerous projects throughout the country have been fasttracked as so-called ‘emergency water supply interventions’, in an attempt to alleviate the desperate need of communities that have been affected by the drought conditions. Due to the time constraints on these projects, work is often implemented without sufficient engineering design, project management or budget allowances. These emergency project implementation scenarios remind one of a well-known project management saying: “Good, cheap, fast – you can pick any two.” Implementing projects as an emergency by default implicates fast turnaround times, which leaves clients with the option of choosing between “good” or “cheap” solutions. If one throws into the decision-making process a limited budget, these so-called emergency projects are doomed to be classified as “cheap” and “fast”. South Africa, like the rest of the world, is facing unprecedented socio-economic challenges, as communities and leadership struggle to come to terms with the devastating aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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For the unforeseeable future, funding for capital projects will be strained due to the costly measures implemented in mitigating the impact of the pandemic and we can illafford implementation of “cheap” and “fast” solutions when it comes to infrastructure needed to provide much needed basic services. Although the desperate drought conditions left many communities with no alternative but to implement emergency measures, such projects should be limited at all cost.
Another kind of drought Unfortunately, it is not only projects given emergency status that currently suffer from inadequate project management and engineering design within the South African water services sector. Apart from the lack of annual rainfall, South Africa is also experiencing a drought in the
form of a skilled and experienced workforce. This is especially true when it comes to technically demanding disciplines involved in providing complex engineering and project management solutions. Recent years have been known for the mass exodus of skilled resources from the country and an overemphasis on the social cultures within organisations have come at the cost of a much-needed technical culture that fosters work ethics and skills development. To a large degree, we have lost the technical ability to develop and implement long-term planning strategies in the form of water services development plans, and few resources are skilled enough to apply supply chain management procurement regulations and contract data.
The way forward With the Covid-19 pandemic reaching its peak, many of us have much time at hand to reflect on the way we do business and implement projects within the South African context. There is no short-term, quick-fix solution to the challenges faced by project teams implementing waterrelated infrastructure. Perhaps it is time to get back to project management basics by consulting expert judgment and focusing on the phase gates that define project
