Another 18 ministry infrastructure projects out of 86 (21%) are now catogorised as 'sick' according to the Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai (Borneo Post Wednesday 23rd December, Page 22). These contractors will now '...be imposed a penalty of RM3,600 for every delayed day, until the project is completed'.

The question I ask is why are so many projects failing to complete on time and what is being done to reduce this trend?

I do believe the reason for the high rate of faillure is due to a lack of maturity and understanding by the contractor and ministries' agents on how to monitor and control projects succesfully. To increase this maturity I suggest the monies collected from the imposed penalties could be used to educate and implement standard Project Management Methodologies across the ministries'agents and their contractors.

For example let us assume that on average each of these 18 projects is delayed by 20 days resulting in RM1,296,000 generated (18 projects x RM3,600 x 20 days). Instead of this money being tipped into the IR why not use it for training the agencies in project monitoring and controlling.

As an additional penalty the contractor should be forced into attending these courses that will increase their understanding of Project Management and should be made to produce a certificate of attendance before being allowed to tender for additional projects.

The imposing of penalties alone on the contractors does not solve the problem of completing future projects on time.


All comments are welcome.