Can public service deliver projects better? According to Aroun Poligadu, the President of the Project Management Institute Mauritius Chapter, the answer is yes. To do so, he says, government should invest in the right process, digital tools, and in the education of its project managers to meet international best practice standards in program and project management practices.
Apart from costs overrun that amounts to several millions, the National Audit Office team often reports recurrent late delivery annually. Project Management Institute Mauritius has made several recommendations in the past to put an end to wastage of funds and resources as repeatedly shown by the NAO. For Aroun Poligadu, “If government wants to put an end to critics and earn back the trust of the people on the management of funds, it should invest in employee certification to improve projects success rates”.
However, the problem is that the Mauritian public service, just like in many of other countries, is not mature in portfolio and project management practices. The key portfolio management practices like the vision of the government to key projects, capacity planning, prioritizing is not systematically adhered to and followed. Although the procurement activities are now well defined, acquisitions of new materials and resources for example will require several levels of approvals which in turn take considerable time. Stopping a project with no value is rarely considered over prioritizing a more important project.
“This is why I think that the Project Implementation and Monitoring Agency as stated in the National Budget 2021/2022 as well as the Coordination Committee to which it will report to, to coordinate with other departments in the public service is a good start. I believe that this committee in the first place will allow Chief Executives, senior government officials and project managers to be accountable for their projects; create the kind of collaborative project management environment that is missing in large scale public sector led projects”.
The disconnect between strategy as decided and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers and execution by public bodies and ministries themselves is a major problem in the realization of projects. Although the annual prebudget consultations bring stakeholders around the same table, enabling policy makers to listen to the views of everyone, pre-study of the feasibility of projects are not undertaken. Many projects are not completed or not even started thus not delivering the value required to the public. The lack of deeper project inception and planning is pointed out as the root cause by Aroun Poligadu. “Procurement carried out without sound preliminary studies is often a major shortcoming in the public service. This affects the overall life cycle of the project and is certainly something that needs to be dealt with. In addition, processes must be made flexible to make room for potential overruns to cater for unforeseen circumstances as it is often the case in IT.”
The recent World Bank country economic memorandum, “Mauritius Through the Eye of A Perfect Storm: Coming Back Stronger The COVID Crisis’ states that the 2020 crises that Mauritius had to go through have only revealed cracks in the system that have been there for a long time. “Black swan events are now commonplace risks. We have to adapt or perish. Risk is not a reason to freeze ongoing projects. We must on the contrary invest more to explore how we may adopt new practices and technology that will give real value to projects once completed” says Aroun Poligadu about risk-averse investment climate in crisis time. Aroun Poligadu, who is also the Chief Information Officer for the Mauritian branch of iQera, French leader in management and debt repurchase argues that high employee certification in project management is probably the most decisive marketing argument to close deals both abroad and locally at the moment.
This is why he calls for the adoption of sound project management methodology in the public service, especially in IT and infrastructural projects. For the time being, there are according to him too few certified project managers in the public service. Alongside certification, the President of PMI Mauritius recommends the adoption of project management tools in the likes of Planview Enterprise and CA Clarity.
To increase projects success rates significantly in the public service, “a law similar to the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act enforced in the United States will be ideal. Until we reach that point, project managers need to be given both the skills and the tools that are needed to deliver.”
