Poor management at core of project failure
SOMETIMES you get the impression that one of the problems with our governing structures is that they are incapable of incorporating lessons from past mistakes as part of their organisational culture. They keep on repeating the same mistakes, stumbling into the same pitfalls.
The disastrous failure of the social development department to implement the manufacture of diapers and sanitary towels is a stark example of this failure to learn from past mistakes.
It is not that long ago that we were treated to the circus of falling toilets in the Amathole Municipality because of government bungling. What is alarming is that the reasons for the failure of the current diaper project are a carbon copy of the reasons for the failure of the previous Amathole toilet project. They both point to incompetent management and lack of leadership.
The forensic report is more specific: It points to poor procurement practices, lack of oversight, poor planning, incompetent personnel (probably from corrupt hiring practices), lack of organisational ethics, criminality (possibly theft and fraud), poor quality control that allows payment for non-working machinery.
It’s a project with no one in charge where thieves roam free. How else can you explain all these employees hired to implement this project, and none of them realising the project was not moving forward in time to blow the whistle?
The response from the HoD of the department responsible for this failure, Stanley Khanyile, is reportedly asking the public to send him questions.
A nagging question for me is, given the widespread knowledge that poor management was at the heart of the failure of the Amathole toilet project, what steps did Mr Khanyile take to ensure that his project had adequate oversight, trained procurement staff, a planning department that works, quality control, organisational ethics in place and adhered to and criminal behaviour, such as fraud, was kept in check?
Additionally, why did it take as long as it did for him to realise that the project had not even reached the take-off stage?
But the most important question for Mr Khanyile to answer is why he should not be relieved of his position for failure to perform his duties as head of his department.
This was not a run-of-the-mill project. It was a project that had prospects of employment opportunities for the thousands of unemployed. It had prospects of improving public health and personal hygiene for women and schoolgirls.
My view is that he should resign. He was given an important task. It was not a particularly difficult task. All he had to do was to assemble a competent team and monitor their progress. He failed and needs to accept responsibility for that failure.
We also know that the integrity of an investigation depends very much on who is conducting it. Its scope tells us how thorough it will be in covering all areas.
Having the department of social development conduct its own investigation of this catastrophe is like asking the president to investigate the Gupta affair.
If this department was not ethical enough to implement the project, why would it suddenly be ethical enough to conduct a thorough investigation of its failures without hiding unpleasant facts?
There is also reason to suspect that laws were trampled on as the forensic report suggests. It is therefore imperative that a special commercial crimes unit of the Hawks should conduct an outside investigation and prosecute those found liable.
To the extent that government ethics may also have been violated, the public protector should conduct its own investigation of the personnel involved in this project and remove them from government service. — Wongaletu Vanda, via e-mail