Risk management must be boosted - Expert

PROJECT risk management in Zambia needs to evolve to a higher state of effectiveness to regain the confidence from businesses and add demonstrable value to future project delivery.

This is in light of visible construction industry dissatisfaction in the country, says Institute of Risk Management Zambia (IRMZA) Executive Director, Francis Ziba.

Recent case evidence conducted by the IRMZA demonstrated that more than 75 percent of large complex projects across the construction sector in Zambia had failed to meet owner-sanctioned objectives.

Mr Ziba said developers, Government and especially the National Construction Council

(NCC) and the Zambia Public Procurement Agency (ZPPA), could take the necessary steps to minimise potential threats for major infrastructure projects.

This, he said, could be done even though it may be challenging to mitigate transparency and corruption risks on major infrastructure projects.

“Before such a risk effectiveness revolution can occur, however, a number of negative project phenomena impairing risk management from delivering value in major project environments, will need to be addressed.

“Managing these risks will require improvements in data reporting and transparency-especially around debt,” Mr Ziba said in his write up on “The Booming Construction Sector in Zambia – Managing the Risks.”

Mr Ziba said although a broad range of views had been published as to why major projects continued to fail at such a high rate, his article addressed the apparent cynicism being displayed towards existing project risk management effectiveness.

He indicated that project owners and contractors alike appeared to be visibly questioning the return on investment that traditional risk management practices bring to a major project environment.

Mr Ziba said most of these infrastructure project also presented considerable opportunities to contractors and investors, but transparent and corruption posed a major threat to the industry.

“Most of the major projects taking place aim to boost economic growth and integrate the country into a regional economic hub in terms of the roads, airports and other infrastructure projects.

“But despite these developments and improvements, most of the projects are still failing to come in on time and under budgets abnormally high rates,” he said.